Client: US-based LegalTech company (name withheld pending client approval)
Service: Headhunting → Turnkey Staff Augmentation
Engagement: Ongoing
The Problem
The client came to us with a familiar but frustrating situation. Almost a year earlier, they’d assembled a part-time development team to build their MVP. A year later, the product still wasn’t ready.
It wasn’t a lack of effort. It was a structural problem – a part-time team without a single owner driving architecture decisions, without the seniority to make judgment calls under ambiguity, and without the bandwidth to move at founder speed.
Time was slipping, budget was being spent, and the product that was supposed to prove the business case hadn’t shipped.
What We Did
Before sourcing a single candidate, we sat down with the requirements, wireframes, and everything the client had to work with. We talked through the target budget – not just for hiring, but for what the business could realistically sustain post-MVP. And we mapped out the team structure the job actually needed, not the team structure the client had inherited.
The conclusion: this didn’t need more people. It needed one exceptional one.
The first candidate didn’t close.
Mid-process, he received a competing offer at a higher compensation level than the client’s framework allowed. We escalated, explored whether the budget could flex, and confirmed it could not. Most agencies would have gone back to square one at that point. Because we’d built a deeper bench during the search than the brief strictly required, we had a viable plan B already in process.
Plan B closed. The candidate had competing options of his own, and convincing him to take the engagement required real conversation about the role, the team, the trajectory of the work, and the kind of problem he’d actually be solving. He joined within the original timeline.
The Profile
We went in looking for a very specific kind of engineer – a single full-stack builder capable of designing architecture with scale in mind from day one, and fluent enough with modern AI-assisted development tools to build fast without cutting corners.
Just as important: this wasn’t a “build the MVP and walk away” hire. Past the MVP stage, the product would need to hold up to enterprise-grade standards. So during screening, we weren’t just testing technical skill – we were evaluating mindset. Could this person operate as the technical leader the company would need later, the one a team gets built around once the product proves out?
That combination – hands-on builder today, technical lead tomorrow – narrowed the field considerably.
The Search
Three weeks of sourcing and interviewing produced a shortlist of three candidates, each a close match to the profile. Not three plausible options padded out to look thorough – three people we’d genuinely stand behind.
The client ran the final round for cultural fit and made the call.
The Result
The hire didn’t go in alone. We paired him with a part-time product owner, specifically to bridge the gap between the founder’s business requirements and the day-to-day technical execution – a role that’s easy to skip and expensive to skip wrong.
The team today: one senior AI-augmented full-stack engineer, one part-time product owner. Lean, deliberately structured, and built to scale into something larger once the MVP proves out.
The takeaway
The client didn’t need more headcount. They needed the right person, correctly scoped, found fast. Three weeks from kickoff to shortlist, and a team structure designed for what comes after the MVP – not just the MVP itself.
See the client review on Clutch
Client was generous to leave us a review on Clutch for this placement. Read the Clutch Review for Perpetum
