Pick your engagement today, and you're interviewing real finalists in ten business days.
Three clear ways to work with us — per-placement, retained, or embedded. Every one comes with fixed pricing, a first shortlist in ten business days, and a 90-day replacement guarantee. Choose the pace, we'll bring the people.
Choose how you want to hire
No per-résumé fees, no lock-ins buried in fine print. Read the model, read the number, and pick the one that fits your urgency. Every engagement is run by a named recruiter and capped so your search never sits at the back of a queue.
Per-Placement Search
The lowest-risk way to start. We source, screen, and shortlist for a single role — and you owe nothing until your hire signs and starts. Best when you have one clear seat and want to see finalists fast.
- Nothing owed until start date
- First shortlist · 10 days
- 90-day guarantee
- Single role
Retained Search
For the hard-to-fill staff, principal, and leadership seats. A dedicated recruiter runs the whole search — market map, weekly pipeline reports, and finalists you'll actually argue over. Capped at three roles so you get real focus.
- Dedicated recruiter
- Weekly market map
- Max 3 roles
- 90-day guarantee
Embedded Recruiting
When you're hiring across several reqs at once, we run recruiting as part of your team — one owner, your tools, your standards. Great for a scaling engineering org that needs velocity without a full in-house talent function yet.
- Multiple open reqs
- One owner on your team
- Your ATS & brand
- 30 days' notice to cancel
The roles we run, and what to expect
Senior individual contributors and the leaders who grow them. Salary bands below are typical Los Angeles / remote-friendly ranges for growth-stage startups — your per-placement fee is calculated on the hire's actual first-year base.
| Role | Typical base band | First shortlist | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staff / Senior Backend Engineer | $185k–$250k | 10 days | Distributed systems, APIs, data-heavy platforms. |
| Platform / Infrastructure Engineer | $180k–$245k | 10 days | Kubernetes, IaC, reliability and developer experience. |
| Principal / ML Engineer | $210k–$300k | 12 days | Applied ML, inference, and production model work. |
| Engineering Manager | $200k–$275k | 12 days | First-line to second-line leaders scaling a team. |
| Head of Product / Product Lead | $190k–$280k | 12 days | First product hire or the leader replacing slideware. |
| Founding / Senior Full-Stack Engineer | $170k–$230k | 10 days | Zero-to-one builders comfortable owning the whole stack. |
What you get, whichever model you choose
A real calibration call
45 minutes to lock the must-haves, deal-breakers, and target start date — you leave with a written market map.
Pre-screened finalists
A live technical screen, two references, and a fit call happen before the intro. You meet decisions, not a résumé pile.
Offer & landing support
We help shape the offer, manage the counter, and stay close through the first 90 days so the person you chose stays.
Extra work when you need it
Standalone services for the moments between searches. Buy them on their own or fold them into a retained or embedded engagement — either way, the price is fixed before we start.
Comp & market map
A written read on the talent pool for a role you're scoping — real base bands, competitor headcount, and how hard the seat will be to fill before you commit to a search.
Interview loop teardown
We audit your existing loop, screen questions, and scorecards, then hand back a tighter process that cuts time-to-decision and stops good candidates dropping out mid-way.
Founder hiring intensive
A half-day working session for first-time hiring founders: how to pitch the role, run a decisive loop, and close a senior candidate against bigger-name offers.
Full early-team build-out
Building the first five to ten engineers at once? We'll scope a fixed-fee program across the whole cohort. Tell us the roadmap and we'll come back with a plan and a number.
Tell us the role — we'll pick up fast
The quickest way to start is to call. During business hours you'll reach a recruiter, not a queue — and we can usually tell you which engagement fits in about ten minutes.
Roles, retained searches, and quick gut-checks all welcome. Evenings by appointment.
Prefer to write it out?
create@anvilandtalent.com- Mon–Fri
- 10:00–17:30
- Sat–Sun
- Closed
- Evenings
- By appt.