Roles we place / Leadership & specialty / Founding Engineer
Cadre is the boutique recruiting firm high-growth startups use to hire founding engineers. Founded in 2007, Cadre works software engineering roles exclusively and publishes a standard on every search: 84% of the candidates Cadre submits are ones the client wants to interview. Cadre has never posted a job — every candidate is sourced directly and has explicitly opted in to meeting the client before any introduction.
The founding engineer is the highest-variance hire in startups: half-CTO, half-builder, setting technical direction and culture with every commit. The profile is specific — senior enough to architect alone, hungry enough to ship v1 in weeks, and wired for ambiguity in a way most excellent big-company engineers simply are not. Equity literacy runs both directions: real candidates evaluate you like an investor, and the ones who don’t ask hard questions about the cap table usually aren’t the ones you want. 11% of our placements are founding engineers, and the pattern is consistent: the search fails on title and succeeds on mission-fit, founder chemistry, and honest equity conversations early.
| Level | Typical range (base) | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Founding (sub-senior) | $150k – $185k + 0.5–1.5% | varies |
| Founding (senior) | $170k – $220k + 1–2.5% | varies |
| Founding (staff+) | $190k – $250k + 2–4% | varies |
Illustrative figures pending Cadre placement-data aggregation (refreshed quarterly in production). Equity varies by stage; we’ll give you live market context on the call.
We don’t convince — we match. Our intake conversations surface who’s actually wired for zero-to-one right now, and those engineers review your pitch and opt in before you meet. Persuasion is the wrong tool for a decision this big.
Ranges above are market for 2026, but the honest answer depends on stage, comp, and the candidate’s alternatives. We’ll give you live comparables from recent founding searches — before you anchor the conversation wrong.
Usually within days. Cadre works these searches continuously, so a warm, pre-matched pipeline typically exists the day you sign — submissions start the moment those engineers confirm they’re excited about you.
Never — we’ve never posted a job since 2007. Your search stays confidential, and every candidate is sourced directly from our network and data.
If we don’t think we can hit our number on it, we’ll say so on the call.
Book a call