Best engineering recruiting firms (2026): who hires software, data, and cloud talent
Engineering recruiting firms fill software, data, infrastructure, and cloud roles. Some are contingency agencies for startups. Some are staffing firms for contract engineers. Some are marketplaces where you hire remote developers with less of a traditional search.
The broader startup list, which mixes engineering, go-to-market hiring, executive search, and job platforms, is tech recruiting agencies. This page stays on engineering. Quota-carrying sales hiring is on GTM and sales recruiting agencies. Coastal Recruiting is listed first because it places engineers at VC-backed startups and is a OneGTM client.
Key takeaways
- Coastal Recruiting places engineering, product, and GTM talent at VC-backed startups and publishes a 25% fee on first-year base salary, with nothing due upfront.
- Motion Recruitment and TEKsystems staff software, data, and infrastructure talent on contract and direct hire. Harnham specializes in data, analytics, and AI.
- La Fosse recruits software engineers in the UK and Europe, including contract and permanent roles.
- Nigel Frank and Jefferson Frank are Tenth Revolution Group brands, for Microsoft technology and for cloud talent.
- Terminal and Arc are marketplaces for remote developers. Gun.io is a network for senior engineering work. Most of these firms do not publish a percentage.
Startup and specialist engineering recruiters
Use these when the role is a software, data, or product-engineering hire and you want a recruiter who works that market. Coastal is a client. Read the rest of the list with that in mind.
Coastal Recruiting
OneGTM client
Boutique firm for VC-backed startups, placing engineering, product, and GTM talent. Offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Miami. OneGTM built the candidate sourcing system its recruiters use. The numbers are in the Coastal Recruiting case study.
Best for: Seed to growth-stage startups hiring engineers
Fees: Placement fee of 25% of first-year base salary. No upfront payment. Free replacement if a hire leaves within the guarantee period.
Motion Recruitment
IT staffing firm placing software, data, infrastructure, cybersecurity, product, and embedded engineers on contract, direct-hire, and statement-of-work terms. Also on the tech recruiting agencies list.
Best for: Contract and direct-hire engineers in the US
Fees: Fees not published.
Harnham
Data and AI recruitment firm. It places data science, analytics, AI, and data engineering talent on a permanent or contract basis, from individual contributors through leadership.
Best for: Data, analytics, and AI hiring
Fees: Fees not published.
La Fosse
UK and Europe technology recruiter with a software engineering practice covering contract and permanent hires, including JavaScript, Python, Java, mobile, and DevOps roles.
Best for: Software engineers in the UK and Europe
Fees: Fees not published.
Cloud specialists and technology staffing
Nigel Frank and Jefferson Frank sit inside Tenth Revolution Group. TEKsystems is the large technology staffing option when you need contract coverage at volume.
Nigel Frank
Microsoft technology recruiting brand of Tenth Revolution Group. It places people across the Microsoft stack, including Azure, Dynamics, and related engineering and consulting roles.
Best for: Microsoft and Azure engineering hires
Fees: Fees not published.
Jefferson Frank
Cloud recruiting brand of Tenth Revolution Group, focused on AWS and cloud talent. It is a sister brand to Nigel Frank.
Best for: AWS and cloud engineering hires
Fees: Fees not published.
TEKsystems
Technology services and talent firm. It staffs technical roles and also delivers technology projects. A fit when you need contract engineers across several teams.
Best for: Contract technology talent at scale
Fees: Fees not published.
Remote developer marketplaces
A marketplace is cheaper to start than a retained search, and you do more of the selection. Leadership search for a VP of Engineering is a different product, covered on executive search firms and, for technology leadership, on tech recruiting agencies.
Terminal
Talent platform for hiring software developers in Canada, Latin America, and Europe. The site says hires come with a 14-day guarantee.
Best for: Remote software developers outside a traditional agency search
Fees: Pricing not published as a placement percentage. The site advertises a 14-day guarantee.
Arc
Marketplace of remote talent for freelance or full-time work, including developers, designers, and product managers. Arc says candidates are vetted.
Best for: Hiring a vetted remote developer without a full search
Fees: Pricing not published on the homepage.
Gun.io
Network for hiring senior engineers on contract or longer engagements. The site positions the work as high-stakes engineering, with vetting before an introduction.
Best for: Senior contract engineers
Fees: Fees not published.
Fees are from each firm's own site as of November 2026. Where a firm does not publish a percentage, the card says so. This is an opinionated list, not a paid ranking, and nobody paid to be on it. Coastal Recruiting is a OneGTM client.
Engineering recruiting firms compared
| Firm | Best for | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Coastal Recruiting | Seed to growth-stage startups hiring engineers | 25% of first-year base |
| Motion Recruitment | Contract and direct-hire engineers in the US | Not published |
| Harnham | Data, analytics, and AI hiring | Not published |
| La Fosse | Software engineers in the UK and Europe | Not published |
| Nigel Frank | Microsoft and Azure engineering hires | Not published |
| Jefferson Frank | AWS and cloud engineering hires | Not published |
| TEKsystems | Contract technology talent at scale | Not published |
| Terminal | Remote software developers outside a traditional agency search | Not published |
| Arc | Hiring a vetted remote developer without a full search | Not published |
| Gun.io | Senior contract engineers | Not published |
Fees as published on each firm's own site in November 2026. "Not published" means the firm does not list a percentage or a dollar amount.
How to choose an engineering recruiter
An agency that fills founding-engineer seats is rarely the one you want for a six-month contract platform team. Ask which of those they did last quarter.
- Ask for three placements at companies your stage, in the same language or stack.
- Get the fee, the guarantee, and whether contractors convert to full-time in writing.
- Ask who sources, and whether they keep an off-limits list so they do not recruit your current engineers.
- For a marketplace, ask who employs the developer and who holds the contract.
- Agree how many candidates you will see per week, and how fast you will interview.
Run a recruiting firm? Candidate outbound is a separate system
OneGTM does not recruit engineers. For a recruiting firm, we build the candidate data, scoring, outreach, and reply triage the recruiters use.
That is the system behind Coastal Recruiting. Accepted candidate intros grew 4.7x, from 72 in April to 340 in August 2026. The case study has the build.
- Interested candidates arrive in bursts, then dry up.
- Recruiters write every note by hand.
- You cannot say which sources produce accepted intros.
Engineering recruiting FAQ
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