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.

Do you work US hours?

Yes. Searches for US clients run to US time zones throughout, for calls, interviews and offer conversations.

Do you place H-1B or relocating candidates?

Yes, though whether we can on any given search is driven entirely by the client. Some clients will sponsor and some will not, so we establish that at the kickoff call and screen to it from the start rather than finding out at offer stage. Where a client is open to it, we place candidates who need sponsorship and candidates relocating to the US.

How do your fees work for a US hire?

For a permanent (full-time) hire the fee is a percentage of the candidate’s starting base salary. The percentage depends on the seniority of the role, the difficulty of the search and whether you engage us exclusively, retained or contingent, and is agreed with you in writing before we start. On a retained search the fee is split in thirds: a third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement.

AI/ML Executive Search in the US for Seed to Series C Startups

Digitalent is a specialist AI/ML executive search firm placing senior machine learning and research leaders into VC-backed startups from seed to Series C. 300+ of our 500+ AI/ML placements since January 2021 have been in the US, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York and Los Angeles. The person who takes your brief runs it through to offer.

Get in touch Recent placements

The US at Digitalent

300+

US AI placements since January 2021

500+

AI/ML placements worldwide

90%+

still in post after 12 months

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
US cities: the San Francisco Bay Area, New York and Los Angeles
Also placing in: US-wide, including Boston, Seattle, Austin and Chicago
US hours: All US time zones covered for calls, interviews and offers

Figures updated August 2026.

Cities

Hiring in a specific US city

Each US city is a different hiring problem, so the detail lives on its own page.

AI/ML executive search in New York. What a New York search actually turns on, the three kinds of employer hiring there, and the two searches we ran for a Series A research lab while it was still in stealth.

We work across the rest of the US from the same desk, in US hours. If you are hiring in the Bay Area, Los Angeles or anywhere else, the process on this page is the process.

Roles

What we place in the US

We place senior AI, machine learning and research talent, from a company's first engineer through to the leader who builds the team.

AI/ML Engineering. ML engineers from mid to staff level, AI Leads and Heads of Machine Learning
Data Science. VPs, Directors and Heads of Data Science, principal data scientists and applied scientists
Forward Deployed Engineering. Forward deployed engineers, including Founding FDEs, and customer-facing AI engineers
Agentic AI. Agentic AI engineers, evaluation and reliability engineers, and applied engineers building on frontier models
Software Engineering (AI). Software Engineers and Senior Software Engineers who build with AI-accelerated engineering tooling as standard
Research. Founding research engineers, research scientists and Heads of Research
Robotics. Robotics research and ML engineers, including world models and vision-language-action work

How a US search runs

We work to approx. one week from brief to shortlist, and approx. three weeks from brief to offer on a permanent (full-time) hire.

A search starts with a kickoff call covering the technical bar, the stage the company is at, the comp band and the two or three things that would make a candidate an obvious yes. For a founding hire that conversation usually matters more than the job description.

Shortlists are short, and every person on one comes with a written case for why they are there rather than a stack of CVs. We work across all US time zones, irrespective of where your hiring team sits, so calls, interview scheduling and offer conversations happen when they suit you.

Contract and interim searches move faster, at approx. one week from brief to offer.

Case studies

Recent US placements

Recent US searches. Some are anonymised, because several of our clients are in stealth.

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.

The company was in stealth, so there was no brand to lead with in outreach, and the role sat at a rare intersection of world models and robotics, trained on a data type almost nobody has at scale. The technical bar set by the founding CTO was extremely high. The realistic pool was a few hundred people worldwide, most of them mid-PhD or settled in research posts at the major industrial labs. None of them were looking.

The founding hire was given the title Head of Robotics Research early on and now leads a multi-phase product roadmap, and the client came back to build the rest of the research team around them.

Client: Withheld, still in stealth
Stage: Series A
Funding: a16z-backed
Location: New York
Roles: Founding Research Engineer
Brief to shortlist: one week
Brief to offer: three weeks

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.

The people who could do this work would not take it. They were mid-PhD or settled in research posts at the major industrial labs, and none of them were going to leave for a conventional full-time role at a company still in stealth. Rather than keep approaching the same small pool with an offer they had already declined, we built the engagement around a part-time residency instead, which meant selling a working arrangement as much as a job.

Three researchers joined on that basis. Both founders have since committed to hiring the rest of the research bench through us exclusively.

Client: Withheld, still in stealth
Stage: Series A
Funding: a16z-backed
Location: New York
Roles: Three part-time researchers
Brief to shortlist: one week
Brief to offer: two weeks

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.

The engineer embeds on a client site three to five days a week and owns the relationship alone, so the brief needed production-grade agentic engineering and consulting-level client handling in the same person. The company was also in stealth, which left no brand to open a conversation with, and several agencies were briefed on the same roles.

Ours was the only candidate to clear every stage, across all the agencies briefed, and the only placement any of them made. The client came back with an expanded brief of a further 8 to 12 engineers across Los Angeles and a new Manhattan office, and moved the engagement onto an exclusive footing. A single contingent hire became an ongoing partnership across both coasts.

Client: Withheld, still in stealth
Stage: Seed-stage, roughly 25 people, recently out of stealth
Location: Los Angeles
Roles: Founding Forward Deployed Engineer
Brief to shortlist: five days
Brief to offer: three and a half weeks

Fees

We work retained or contingent, and we will tell you which one suits the role before you commit to either.

Retained. A third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement. Suits executive and leadership hires, and niche briefs where the search is genuinely labour-intensive.

Contingent. Payable when the candidate signs their employment contract, or on their start date. Our standard arrangement for permanent (full-time) roles.

Synergy. A small non-refundable deposit, offset against the final fee. It sits between the two, for clients who want a committed search without a full retainer. Also for permanent (full-time) roles rather than contract.

FAQ

US search: frequently asked questions

Do you place in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles?: Yes. 300+ of our 500+ AI/ML placements have been in the US, concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York and Los Angeles. We also place US-wide, wherever a client is hiring, including remotely.
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.
Do you work US hours?: Yes. Searches for US clients run to US time zones throughout, for calls, interviews and offer conversations.
Do you place H-1B or relocating candidates?: Yes, though whether we can on any given search is driven entirely by the client. Some clients will sponsor and some will not, so we establish that at the kickoff call and screen to it from the start rather than finding out at offer stage. Where a client is open to it, we place candidates who need sponsorship and candidates relocating to the US.
How do your fees work for a US hire?: For a permanent (full-time) hire the fee is a percentage of the candidate’s starting base salary. The percentage depends on the seniority of the role, the difficulty of the search and whether you engage us exclusively, retained or contingent, and is agreed with you in writing before we start. On a retained search the fee is split in thirds: a third on engagement, a third on shortlist, a third on placement.

Hiring AI/ML in the US?

Tell us the role and the stage you are at. A short call is usually enough to tell you what the market looks like for it right now, and whether we are the right firm to run it.

Get in touch

Hiring in the US, the UK or Australia? You will reach the person who runs searches in that market.