Boutique search · Engineering Search

Engineering search for startups that can't afford a wrong hire.

Founding engineers through VP Engineering, recruited directly out of teams where they're building right now. I run every engineering search myself, founder to founder, scoped to your stage and your stack.

Roles I fill

From the first engineer to the leader who scales the team.

Founding Engineer

The 0-to-1 builders who ship a product before there's a team around them.

Backend & Distributed Systems

Engineers who design and run the services your product stands on.

Data & ML Engineering

The people who make your data usable and your models shippable.

Site Reliability & DevOps

Engineers who keep you up at scale and make deploys boring.

Staff & Principal ICs

Senior individual contributors who raise the level of everyone around them.

Engineering Manager to VP Engineering

Leaders who grow the team without slowing it down.

Why these hires don't come from job posts

The people you want aren't applying.

The engineers who can take a product from zero to one are employed, heads-down, and not reading job boards. A job posting gets you who's available. I go directly to who's building, have the conversation most companies can't get, and bring you people who weren't on the market last week.

Founder-led, start to finish

Every search is run by me, Chasen Nick. Intake, sourcing, outreach, and offer, with no handoffs to junior recruiters.

Direct search, not a database

I map who's doing this work at companies like yours and go to them directly, with your specific role.

Few searches, full attention

I take on a few searches at a time so each one moves at the pace your hire actually needs.

Other practices

Also searching across:

Hiring engineers your product depends on?

Tell me about the role. If I'm not the right fit for it, I'll tell you that too.

Book a 30-minute call