Hire a Head of Engineering
The leader who turns your scrappy team into a scaling machine.
The Head of Engineering search is broken
- Retained recruiters.
- LinkedIn Recruiter seats.
- Keyword-matched resumes.
- Templated InMails.
Hiring a Head of Engineering is one of the highest-stakes searches a startup can run. This person will own your technical roadmap, hiring pipeline, and engineering culture. A bad fit at this level sets the entire team back by quarters.
Executive recruiters charge 25-30% of first-year salary and still take 4-6 months. Most of that time is spent on candidates who look right on paper but have never operated at your stage. A VP from a 500-person company is not the same as someone who can lead a team of 8.
The best heads of engineering are almost never on the market. They're promoted internally or poached through warm networks. If you don't have those networks, you're fishing in the wrong pond.
How Superposition finds your engineering leader
Stage-aware matching
We understand the difference between leading 8 engineers and leading 80. Our agent matches candidates to your actual stage, not your aspirational org chart.
18,000+ candidate deep dives
Like our ESAI search that reviewed 18,410 candidates to surface 28 curated matches, and resulted in a signed CTO offer in 8 weeks.
Culture-first sourcing
We don't just match on skills. Our voice intake captures your values, working style, and what kind of leader your team actually needs.
No percentage fees
Flat-rate pricing at $500/agent/month. No percentage of salary, no hidden costs.
“Superposition sourced my CTO from start to finish with no human in the loop, and it really did find our needle in the haystack.”
Questions.
Answered.
Mostly a naming convention tied to size. Head of Engineering usually means the first engineering leader under about forty people; VP implies managers reporting in. The search reads the same either way.
At startup scale, the strongest ones can and occasionally do. It should not be their main output, but an engineering leader who has not opened an editor in three years struggles to hold technical credibility with a small team.
Search on the stage transition rather than the brand. Someone who took a team from eight to forty is a better signal than someone who managed eighty at a company with an existing process.
Usually: meet every engineer, fix the two things everyone complains about, and set a hiring bar. Candidates who describe a reorg in month one are usually the wrong stage fit.
Find your Head of Engineering.
Stop paying executive recruiter fees. Get curated candidates in weeks.