Recruiting Exceptional Software, AI and Data Talent for Scaling Companies.

What to expect.

  • A focused briefing conversation to understand exactly what you need, technically and culturally.

  • A small number of highly relevant candidates, not a pile of CVs.

  • Cover notes that explain why each person is worth your time.

  • Honest advice if we think the brief, budget, or approach needs adjusting.

  • Speed. We move quickly because the best candidates don't stay available for long.

We work on.

  • Permanent hires — Software Engineers, AI/ML Engineers, Data Engineers, Data Scientists, MLOps and Platform Engineers

  • Contract and interim — specialist technical professionals for project-based, transformation and delivery-critical work

  • Senior and leadership appointments - Engineering Managers, Heads of Engineering, Head of Data, AI Leaders and Technical Directors

We support scaling companies across the UK and US, including VC-backed start-ups, scale-ups, fintechs, SaaS businesses, marketplaces, and other technology-led organisations.

We find engineers who ship.

The production ML/AI engineering market in financial services is small, specialist, and highly competitive.

The best candidates are not on job boards.

They are not applying to your roles.

They need to be found.

That is what we do.

Areas of Expertise.

Differential is a specialist technology search firm supporting VC-backed start-ups and growing businesses across London, New York and San Francisco.

We recruit software engineers, AI engineers and data specialists who build products, infrastructure and production systems, particularly for pre-seed through to Series A companies where every hire matters.

Our mandates usually require candidates who:

  • Have strong academic backgrounds with a minimum Bachelors in Computer Science or Computer Engineering

  • Have experience as a founding engineer already and demonstrate building 0 → 1 products

  • Are content will full time in-office

  • Have experience in an environment with a high engineering bar

  • Are genuinely excited and capable about working in a fast-paced and rapidly changing business.

  • Backend, full-stack, platform and founding engineers

  • LLMs, agentic AI, RAG, MLOps, model deployment at scale

  • Azure, AWS, GCP, Databricks, Medallion architecture, modern data stacks

  • Pre-seed to Series A, VC-backed technology businesses and founder-led teams