A focused search partner connecting senior engineers and product leaders from the world’s strongest technology organizations with ambitious seed-to-IPO teams.
FOCUS
Senior & founding
MARKETS
LA · NY · SF
REACH
Global network
01 / OPERATING MODEL
A small, accountable desk stays close from the first calibration through signature.
One working session to define the seat, the bar and the compensation reality.
A deliberate search across proven operators and quietly open talent.
A considered slate with clear context on fit, motivation and timing.
Hands-on partnership through interviews, offer and signature.
02 / PROOF
Selected searches, written the way founders actually brief a search. Company names stay private.
Seed · SF · Founding engineer
01The founder kept seeing solid mid-level profiles who needed a platform team around them. We rewrote the seat as ownership of product plus infra with no bench, reset equity and scope in one calibration, and only approached people who had already been the early eng in a high-bar environment. Slate of four. They hired one.
Series A · NYC · Full-stack / platform
02They did not need another product generalist. They needed someone who had owned a customer-critical path end to end and would delete complexity, not add it. Scorecard got ruthless on systems judgment. Outreach stayed narrow. They closed a senior who made the boring path boring on purpose.
Series B · LA · Engineering manager
03This time the bar was explicit: someone who had run a high-talent pod, still wrote when it mattered, and could raise standards without freezing the team. We screened conflict style as hard as architecture taste. Short slate with clear tradeoffs. Offer accepted. No attrition in the first quarter after start.
Seed · LA · Robotics software
04The team had plenty of people who looked strong on autonomy slides and few who had closed the loop on hardware in a lab. We calibrated for perception-to-controls bring-up under real constraints, mapped people who had shipped on robots, and kept the slate tight. They hired an engineer who debugged on the machine, not only in simulation.
Series A · SF · Applied ML
05The seat was production ML in a messy product, not a lab paper. We made “has shipped models into user-facing systems” non-negotiable, killed research-only profiles early, and ran a small finalist set. Two serious options. They closed the one who had already lived the last mile.
Building a consequential seat? Start a search or book a 30 minute calibration.
03 / SEARCH SYSTEM
Built for consequential hires where judgment, discretion and access matter more than volume.
01 / SEARCH
A focused slate of engineers who have shipped at the highest level, never a resume firehose.
02 / CALIBRATION
We pressure-test the title, level, scope and equity before the first approach is made.
03 / ACCESS
Every conversation starts with context and a credible reason to consider the opportunity.
04 / TALENT MAP
Founding Engineers
First technical hires
ML Engineers
Applied + infrastructure
Full Stack
Systems-wide builders
Front / Back-End
Specialist depth
Tech Leads
Architecture owners
Engineering Mgmt
Team builders
Our recruiting experience / The bar we hire to
We know how exceptional operators evaluate a move, and how to present one with precision.
05 / INTEL
06 / OPPORTUNITIES
A sample of engineering searches we are working now. The full live list is on Opportunities.
OPERATOR-LED SEARCH
Led by founder Diego Montoya, NXT’s approach is informed by recruiting inside demanding technology environments and working directly with hiring leaders.
FOR FOUNDERS
Tell us the seat and the bar. We’ll come back with a considered search, not a list.
How we engage
We run private, high-signal search for seed-to-IPO teams hiring founding and senior engineers. Founding Search is 18% of first-year base, due only on start, with a first calibrated slate in 7 days and a 90-day free replacement. Hiring 2 or more roles? The Team Build Sprint starts with a $5K kickoff, credited in full to the first hire's fee, then 18% for the first hire and 15% for every hire after that. A Hiring Audit is $1,500 for one role or $2,500 for two or more.
FOR ENGINEERS
We move quietly and only for roles worth your time. Start with a private conversation.