Founder-led. AI only.
The team
behind the model.
The experts you need are not looking. We already know them.
Who we work with
Funded AI companies, and teams building AI into a product
What we hire
AI, ML, software, data infrastructure, technical leadership
How
Contract, permanent, retained and executive search
Where
Europe, the USA and the UAE. Further afield where a role demands it
What we do
Funding buys you time. A weak hire spends it twice.
The money lands and the pressure starts. The board wants visible progress, the roadmap already assumes people you have not hired, and the engineers you actually want are employed and busy. Ensemble Partners is built for that moment: one market, one person accountable, and a network in place long before you call. We advise on how the team should be structured, what each role is worth and where the people sit, then run the search ourselves.
Companies moving from a raise into a serious hiring phase, often several roles at once.
Contractors to hold delivery together now. Permanent and leadership hires built to last.
The person you brief is the person who researches the market and writes every approach.
He moves faster than any recruiter I have worked with in the past decade, without ever sacrificing quality.
Carl Ackermann, Data and AI leader
Why founders call
The week after the raise looks like this.
None of this is unusual. It is simply what happens when a small team is asked to grow quickly and get it right at the same time.
The roadmap you sold to investors assumes engineers who have not been hired yet.
There is no internal talent team, and building one takes longer than the plan allows.
The strongest people are employed, well paid and not reading job adverts.
Four open roles at once is more than a founder and two leads can run properly.
A founding or leadership hire that does not work costs far more than any fee.
Candidates need a clear, accurate reason why your company is worth leaving a good job for.
Speed and quality
Quick and careful are not opposites.
Most hiring is slow because the search starts from nothing: a new market, a new brief, a new researcher. We remove that starting cost rather than cutting steps out of the process.
One market
The research is already done
We work in AI and the engineering around it, and nothing else. When a brief arrives we are not learning the market. We are going back to people we have already spoken to, in a field we follow every week.
One person
Fewer handovers, faster decisions
Your brief does not pass through an account manager, a researcher and a delivery consultant. What you say in the call is what reaches the candidate, and questions get answered the same day.
Contract capability
Cover the gap while you build
When a deadline will not move, experienced AI and ML contractors can be working within days while the permanent search runs alongside. Two speeds, one point of contact, no duplicated briefing.
Honest early
Problems surface in week one
If the package sits below the market, if the location rules out most of the shortlist, or if the interview process will lose people, you hear it at the start. That single conversation saves more time than any sourcing tool.
Roles we place
The people who make AI products work.
Leadership
- Chief Technology Officer
- VP Engineering
- Head of AI
- Director of Machine Learning
- AI Engineering Manager
- Founding Engineer
AI and software
- AI Engineer
- Machine Learning Engineer
- LLM Engineer
- Research Engineer
- Backend and Full-stack Engineer
- Data Scientist
Data and infrastructure
- MLOps Engineer
- AI Infrastructure Engineer
- Platform Engineer
- Data Engineer
- DevOps and SRE
These people build AI in fintech, healthcare, defence, energy, robotics and enterprise software, as well as at AI-native startups. The sector varies. The talent market does not. Every role here is placed on contract as well as permanent.
How we work
Four ways to engage.
All four include the diagnostic, the role design and the salary benchmark. The difference is scope, not service. Terms are agreed in writing before any search begins.
Contract
Specialists, deployed quickly
AI, ML and platform contractors for deadlines that cannot move, skill gaps that cannot wait, or headcount you are not ready to commit to. Vetted, available and productive from week one, with day rates benchmarked before you approve them. Funded startups use this to protect a deadline. Established companies building AI into an existing product use it the same way.
For delivery that cannot slip
Retained search
Leadership and founding hires
A committed, exclusive search with a full market map. The role designed with you, every credible name visible, and a shortlist with written reasoning attached, including what each person is not.
For roles you cannot get wrong
Embedded hiring
Your talent team, on retainer
A fixed monthly arrangement for a heavy hiring phase. We run hiring as if in-house, covering pipeline, process, interviewing and offers across several roles at once, until it makes sense to bring it in-house properly.
For teams scaling fast
Specialist search
Single hires, done properly
One role, scoped properly, then a short and considered shortlist rather than a stack of CVs. Success based, with an exclusive window while we work.
For a critical individual hire
Founder-led
Who you brief is who does the work.
Ensemble Partners is deliberately small. I take on a limited number of searches at a time, because the alternative is winning work and handing it to someone who was not in the room when you explained what you are building.
That has a practical effect. I hear the brief first hand, so the reason your company is worth joining reaches candidates intact. I know the market well enough to tell you in the first call if the salary or location will be a problem. And when something needs deciding, you are speaking to the person who can decide it.
It also means my name is attached to every introduction I make. I would rather send you three people I can defend than ten I cannot.
- Direct access to the person responsible for delivering the search, from first briefing to offer acceptance.
- No handover after the pitch. The same person maps the market, writes the approaches and manages the offer.
- Decisions in the conversation rather than three emails later.
- Your company explained accurately to candidates, by someone who understands what you are building.
- Straight advice when a brief, salary, location or interview process will not work in this market.
- A deliberately selective workload, so each search gets proper attention.
- One point of contact for contract cover, permanent growth and leadership search.
Recommendations
In other people's words.
Written on LinkedIn by hiring managers and engineers who have worked with Eoin.
Thanks to his ownership and speed, we were able to close multiple contractor positions very quickly without sacrificing quality.
He moves faster than any recruiter I have worked with in the past decade, without ever sacrificing quality. Every resource he has brought forward has been fully vetted, highly skilled, and genuinely aligned to the role.
An excellent recruiter, supporting me to an extremely smooth interview process and finding a very compatible role.
From the first introductory call to the final offer negotiation, he provided valuable insights about the company culture and prep for the interviews.
Process
We diagnose before we search.
The first job is working out whether the role, the package and the team structure will actually attract the person you want. Sometimes that conversation saves you a hire.
Diagnostic
Ninety minutes with the founder or hiring lead. What the team can already do, what it cannot, and what this hire is really being asked to fix. The role on the spec is often not the role the business needs.
Role design
We rewrite the brief with you: level, scope, reporting line, and the compensation the market is actually paying. You get a written role definition and a benchmark before any search begins.
Market map
Every credible person for the role, named and assessed for reachability. You see the map first. If the talent does not exist at your budget or location, you hear it here rather than in month three.
Approach
Strong engineers ignore templates and reply to people who understand what they build. Every approach is written by the person running your search.
Shortlist
Four to six people, each with a written case covering fit, gaps and risk. We give you the weaknesses as well as the strengths, because you will find them anyway.
Offer and close
Offer strategy, counter-offer defence, resignation support and start date held. Most searches are lost here, not at the top of the funnel.
After the hire
A check-in at thirty and ninety days with both sides. What we learn goes into your next search.
Contract briefs run a compressed version of the same process. The diagnostic becomes a short scoping call, the market map is already in place, and outreach starts immediately, because the point of a contractor is that they are working while the permanent search continues.
Questions
Before you get in touch.
How quickly can you start?
Do you only work with AI startups?
Where do you cover?
We already have someone doing talent internally.
How are you paid?
What happens if the hire does not work out?
Can you help before we are ready to hire?
Get in touch
Tell us who you need to hire.
A short call, an honest read on whether the role is findable as written, and what it will take to fill it. If we are not the right people for it, we will say so.
You will hear back from Eoin, not an account manager. Prefer email? eoin@ensemblepartners.co.uk
Coverage
Europe, the USA and the UAE. On-site, hybrid and remote. International searches where the role requires it.
Candidates
If you build AI systems for a living, get in touch. We keep conversations confidential and we will not send your CV anywhere without asking first.