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Engineers for companies building AI, not just using it.
TekRecruiter recruits technology and engineering talent for AI companies and AI product teams: AI and ML engineers, AI platform engineers, forward deployed engineers and data scientists. We screen on evals, inference cost and systems running in production, so you hire engineers who take a model from a notebook to a product customers rely on. Beyond skills and experience, we look for HEARTThe HEART standardHHigh agencyEExecutionAAccountabilityRResourcefulnessTTransparencyWhat we look for, beyond skills →.
AI & Machine Learning clients
What AI companies actually paid in 2026.
AI hiring is where our 2026 pay data runs highest. Engineers who build and run agentic AI platforms were the highest-paid large group we placed, and forward deployed engineers who take AI products into customer environments were close behind.
Agentic AI platform engineers
Average base across 21 platform and SRE placements in Miami, New York, Boston and San Francisco.1
Forward deployed engineers
21 placements: $220K average in New York, $170K in South Florida and for remote roles.1
Technology and AI services
Share of our 2026 placements at technology and AI services companies, our second-largest sector after health tech.
What AI companies hire us for.
AI and ML engineers
Engineers who build LLM, retrieval and agentic features into products, and principal engineers who own AI systems end to end.
AI platform and SRE
Platform engineers who run model serving, GPU and cloud infrastructure, evaluation pipelines and the reliability of agentic systems.
Forward deployed engineers
Senior builders who deploy AI products inside customer environments and turn pilots into production.
Data science and AI security
Data scientists working in Python and machine learning, and AI security engineers and architects who secure models and agents.
Why AI engineering searches go wrong.
AI roles are new enough that job titles, résumés and pay bands haven’t caught up. These are the misses we hear about most.
- 01
Demos, not production.
A retrieval prototype built over a weekend, never run with real users, evals or an on-call rotation behind it.
- 02
One title, four jobs.
ML engineer, AI platform engineer, forward deployed engineer and data scientist posted as one role, so the shortlist fits none of them.
- 03
Résumés that all read the same.
Every profile lists LLMs, agents and RAG, and interview answers come from the same assistants the candidate lists as skills.
- 04
Offers pegged to generic software bands.
Candidates go to AI platforms instead, where our 2026 platform placements averaged a $190K base.
- Avg base, agentic AI platform engineers
- $190K
- Forward deployed engineers placed in 2026
- 21
- Principal AI and LLM engineers placed
- 14
We screen AI engineers on what runs in production.
We’re technical people, and we walk every AI candidate through a system they shipped: what it did for users, how they evaluated it, what it cost to serve and the trade-offs behind each choice. An assistant can answer a scenario question; it can’t explain the candidate’s own eval harness. Every engineer we present also meets HEART, our standard beyond skills.
- Production, not demos: an AI system they shipped, who used it and how they knew it worked.
- Evaluation: how they measured quality, caught regressions and handled hallucinations or drift.
- Cost and latency: the model, serving and infrastructure choices they made and why.
- Build versus integrate: when they trained or fine-tuned, and when they used an API and moved on.
| A generalist tech recruiting firm | TekRecruiter |
|---|---|
| Matches on "LLM" and "RAG" | Screens for AI systems running in production |
| Treats ML and platform as one role | Separates ML engineering, AI platform, FDE and data science |
| Guesses at AI pay | Prices from 2026 placements: $190K agentic platform, $220K New York FDE |
| Scenario questions an AI tool can answer | Walks through the candidate’s own system end to end |
| Takes “built agents” at face value | Asks how the agent failed and how they caught it |
The HEART standard
What we look for beyond skills and experience, in every candidate we present.
- High agencyPeople who see what needs to be done and act without waiting to be told.
- ExecutionPeople who turn ideas into results.
- AccountabilityPeople who own the outcome, not just their piece of the work.
- ResourcefulnessPeople who figure things out when the answer isn’t obvious.
- TransparencyPeople who communicate clearly, honestly, and early.
What clients say.
The hiring team needed someone who could build a Java automation framework from scratch, and we had worked the search for six straight months with at least 12 or 13 vendors. TekRecruiter sent one candidate, and he got the job.
We needed to hire a senior IAM engineer with deep SOC 2 knowledge, and the role had been open for more than three months. Within a week of speaking with Ron, his team sent over three very solid profiles, and we finally found the right fit in just two weeks.
Across multiple companies, I’ve hired more than six senior software engineers through TekRecruiter, and every one of them has been an impressive builder.
I got a firsthand look when I needed a software engineer with strong TypeScript skills to join my team. I was happy with the candidates, and I was able to make a hiring decision.
A former colleague referred me to TekRecruiter, and I was very impressed by the caliber of the senior DevOps engineers they presented. I identified two senior DevOps engineers who were exceptional fits for my team.
He said he would share three to four candidates within a week, and that’s exactly what he did. We hired a senior software engineer we’re confident in, and we’ve been thrilled with how well things have worked out.
The few times I’ve hired over the last five years, I’ve always been vendor neutral, and TekRecruiter has been the staffing partner that filled every one of those open engineering roles.
Their ability to quickly supply highly skilled software and DevOps engineers who blend in well with our existing teams continues to amaze me. They are highly technical at the account management level and transparently propose different solutions, whether staff augmentation or nearshore outsourcing.
Where we fit in AI hiring.
- AI startups and platforms hiring their first or next wave of engineers.
- AI companies moving enterprise pilots into production, who need FDEs and platform engineers.
- Established companies building AI products, or leading AI transformation from the top.
- Data labeling or annotation at volume. We recruit engineers, not labeling workforces.
- Pure academic research roles with no path to shipping product.
- A prompt-writing hire with an engineer’s title. We will scope the real role with you.
AI hiring questions, answered.
Do you recruit for AI companies?
Yes. TekRecruiter recruits AI and machine learning engineers, AI platform engineers, forward deployed engineers, data scientists and AI security specialists for AI companies and AI product teams. Technology and AI services companies made up 19% of our 2026 placements.
What does an AI platform engineer earn in 2026?
In TekRecruiter’s 2026 placements, platform and SRE engineers building agentic AI platforms averaged a $190,000 base across 21 placements in Miami, New York, Boston and San Francisco, the highest-paid large group in our data. See AI platform engineering and the 2026 Tech Salary & Rate Guide.
What does a senior AI engineer cost?
Principal software engineers working on AI and LLM systems in South Florida averaged a $170,000 base across 14 TekRecruiter placements in 2026. See AI engineering recruiting.
Do you recruit forward deployed engineers for AI companies?
Yes. We placed 21 forward deployed engineers in 2026, half on site and half remote. They averaged a $220,000 base in New York and $170,000 in South Florida and for remote roles. See forward deployed engineering.
How do you screen AI engineers when everyone lists AI on their résumé?
We skip the scenario questions AI tools can answer and walk through a system the candidate shipped: who used it, how they measured quality, how they handled cost, latency and failures, and when they chose to fine-tune versus call an API. Candidates who only built demos do not get submitted.
Do you place AI leaders?
Yes. In 2026 we placed a Director of AI Transformation at a large automotive enterprise in Miami. AI and data leadership searches run through our executive search practice; see Head of Data & AI.
What is the HEART standard?
HEART is the standard we screen every candidate against, beyond skills: high agency, execution, accountability, resourcefulness and transparency. It describes people who take ownership, turn ideas into results and move the business forward. See the standard.
1 Pay figures from TekRecruiter’s 2026 placements (2026 Tech Salary & Rate Guide), reviewed September 2026.
Last updated .
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