A Founding Research Engineer at the intersection of world models and robotics
A Series A data research lab in New York, backed by a16z, hired its first research engineer through Digitalent while still in stealth.
Retained AI/ML Executive Search
Digitalent, the AI/ML executive search firm, runs retained searches for VC-backed startups and for established companies building AI capability, across the US, the UK and Australia. Retained is the right choice when the hire is critical, the pool is small, and the person you want is in the top 1% who are not looking.
Retained search at a glance
Retained search at a glance
500+
AI/ML placements since January 2021
300+
of them in the United States
200+
retained searches completed
- By market
- 300+ US, 100+ UK, 100+ Australia
- By seniority
- 200+ executive and leadership hires, 300+ senior individual contributors
- Brief to shortlist
- approx. one week
- Brief to offer
- approx. three weeks for a permanent (full-time) hire, approx. one week for a contract hire
- Fee structure
- A third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement.
- Best for
- Founding hires, executive leadership, genuinely scarce skills, and reaching the top 1% of the market who are not looking
Figures updated August 2026.
When retained is the right call
When the person you want is not looking, which for senior AI and machine learning is most of them.
Most senior AI/ML people are not actively job searching. For a founding engineer or a VP of AI, the shortlist is not found, it is built: we research the market and headhunt the best people in it, give them a reason to listen, and cover a lot of ground doing it. That takes sustained work on a single brief, which is what a retainer buys.
It also changes the conversation with candidates. A retained search signals the company is serious, and that matters when you are asking someone at executive level to leave a good job they are happy in.
How a retained search runs
Eight stages from brief to aftercare. Brief to shortlist is approx. one week, and brief to offer is approx. three weeks.
- Discovery. You share the role, the technical bar and the constraints. We add what we know about who is available, what the comp band needs to be, and what timeline is realistic.
- Define. We pin down the remit: what this person owns, what they need to have done before, and which of your requirements are genuine dealbreakers rather than preferences.
- Research. We map the market rather than search it, building a list of everyone who could do the job, most of whom are not looking.
- Approach. We go after that list directly and give people a reason to take the call. This is the part an advert cannot do.
- Assess. We filter the longlist against the brief on technical depth, seniority and motivation, so only people who genuinely match reach you.
- Shortlist. A short list, each person with a written case for why they are on it, including where we think the risk sits.
- Interview. We coordinate first stages, or run and record them for you through Synergy so you review on your own schedule.
- Offer and aftercare. We manage the offer conversation on both sides, then stay in contact through notice, start date and the months after it.
90%+ of the people we place are still in the role a year later, which is the number we would rather be judged on than how fast a shortlist lands.
Fees
The fee is a percentage of the candidate’s starting base salary, split into thirds.
A third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement.
The percentage depends on the seniority of the role and the difficulty of the search, and is agreed with you in writing before we start.
Case studies
Recent placements
Some of these are anonymised, because several of our clients are in stealth.
A part-time research residency at a data research lab
Having placed the founding research engineer, the same New York lab needed a research bench. We built it as a part-time residency for people who would not have moved otherwise.
A Principal Agentic AI Lead to set the AI strategy at FleetGuru.ai
FleetGuru.ai, a B2B software scale-up on the Gold Coast, hired a Principal Agentic AI Lead through Digitalent, brought in to set the enterprise AI strategy and design the core agentic framework.
An AI Engineer to build against the architecture at FleetGuru.ai
Five months later, FleetGuru.ai came back to Digitalent for the engineer who would build against that architecture, a Python-native AI engineer able to work across a C#/.NET codebase.
Founding Forward Deployed Engineer at an agentic AI lab
An AI lab in Los Angeles working on computer use and autonomous agents hired its founding Forward Deployed Engineer through Digitalent, a role sitting between research and customer-facing delivery that draws from a very small pool.
Full AI team build, from the leader down, at PE Limited (Petex)
PE Limited, also known as Petex, a software company in Guildford, built its AI function from scratch through Digitalent: the AI Lead first, then the four people who would report to them.
AI-native software engineers across PA Media Group
PA Media Group, the 150-year-old news and media group, hired software engineers who work AI-natively across its StreamAMG, Podium and Alamy brands, as part of moving an engineering organisation of more than 100 people to AI-accelerated ways of working.
FAQ
Retained search: frequently asked questions
- Do you work retained or contingent?
- Both, and they buy different things. Retained buys a full market map, direct approaches to people who are not looking, and sustained work on your brief alone, with the fee split in thirds: a third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement. Contingent works the reachable market quickly, with no fee until you hire someone. Payable when the candidate signs their employment contract, or on their start date. Retained suits scarce and senior hires; contingent suits most permanent (full-time) roles.
- How quickly can you deliver a shortlist on a retained search?
- Brief to shortlist is approx. one week. Brief to offer is approx. three weeks on a retained search.
- What level of role do you run retained?
- Executive and leadership appointments, and genuinely scarce specialists at any level. Chief AI Officer, VP of AI, VP of Machine Learning, Head of AI, Head of Machine Learning, Director of AI Engineering, Head of Research and Head of MLOps, alongside founding hires where the pool is small enough that the search has to be exhaustive.
- Can you work with a stealth startup?
- Yes, and a good share of our clients are. We run the search confidentially and do not name you until either the candidate is a long way through your process, or you tell us we can. You decide when that happens, not us. Several case studies on this site stay anonymous for the same reason.
Talk to us about a retained search
Tell us the role and where it sits in the org. We will tell you what the market looks like for it, and whether retained is actually the right way to run it.
Hiring in the US, the UK or Australia? You will reach the person who runs searches in that market.