Specialist engineering hires for AI-native teams.
Sopharic helps funded US AI startups — pre-seed through Series A — hire engineers who can ship from day one.
Sopharic runs engineering searches for early-stage AI companies.
The companies we work with share a few things:
- Raised between $1M and $30M in the last 18 months
- 5 to 50 employees on the team
- Building AI-native products — applied AI, vertical AI, AI-first tooling
- Founders who care more about the next great engineering hire than anything else this quarter
Fewer clients. Deeper work. Real outbound.
Most firms collect a job spec and post it everywhere. Sopharic works the other way — outbound, selective, hands-on.
Intake
We start with what the role actually needs to do — not the job description. Most written specs describe the wrong role; the real need comes out in conversation. A 60–90 minute call with the founder or hiring manager: what this hire must accomplish, where your team is thin, and what makes someone a real fit for your stage.
Search
Outbound only. We don't post your roles publicly — your existing channels handle that, and the engineers worth hiring aren't browsing job boards. You see a shortlist of 3–5 vetted candidates, not a flood of CVs.
Close
The hardest part of senior engineering hiring isn't the source — it's the close. We stay hands-on through offer, negotiation, and accept.
A specialist is partly defined by the work they decline.
To keep our service worth what we charge, we don't take work outside what Sopharic is built for.
Exclusive engagements only. We don't compete with three other recruiters on the same role. One firm, one search, done properly.
No blind sourcing. We don't start a search until we actually understand the role — so we're never sending you candidates against a spec that's wrong.
Early-stage teams only. Sopharic is built for 5-to-50-person companies. The hiring dynamics at larger companies are a different game.
Hiring your first engineers isn't the same as staffing a 5,000-person company — but most recruiters treat it like it is.
Most agencies operate at volume — pitching the same candidates to twenty clients, racing to submit first, optimizing for speed-to-fee.
Sopharic is the inverse. Fewer clients. Deeper work. Engineering searches that take six to ten weeks because they're done right.
Hiring engineers for an AI startup?
Pick a time on the calendar — we'll come prepared with questions about your team and what you're building.