R&D Talent was built around a simple idea: companies building technology need recruiters who understand both the talent market and the work their teams are trying to accomplish.
Startups compete for scarce technical talent against much larger companies. They need more than a stream of resumes. They need a partner who knows where the right people work, how to reach them, and how to present the opportunity honestly. That’s the kind of recruiting we do.
We focus on the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most competitive technology talent markets in the world. When the right candidate sits outside the region, we extend the search.
Principal Recruiter
Iyad has more than 10 years of full-cycle technical recruiting, specializing in data science, machine learning, analytics and engineering. He spent nearly nine years leading data science and analytics hiring at Move (Realtor.com), and earlier recruited for LinkedIn, VMware, Pure Storage and Points.com.
Senior Technical Recruiter
Ismail recruits engineers and technical leaders across AI, machine learning, infrastructure and product, with recruiting experience at Meta and Google. He trains recruiters on AI-assisted sourcing and, off the clock, co-founded the Bay Valley Suns Sports Club.
Senior Technical Recruiter & Sourcer
Anna brings a computer science background to full-cycle hiring for engineering, IT and R&D teams across North America and Europe. She led R&D recruiting on both continents at Midea Group, uses AI-powered sourcing to find and engage the right people quickly, and serves on the Consumer Advisory Council at Stanford Children’s Hospital.
Sales & Client Partnerships
Swahib leads sales and new client partnerships. He gets to know founders and hiring leaders, learns their growth plans, and matches them with the right way to work with R&D Talent. He brings years of relationship management and business development in financial services, working with high-net-worth clients, and holds an economics degree from San Jose State University.
Advisor
Sam has more than 15 years in talent acquisition, specializing in R&D recruiting and leadership and executive search. He is a talent acquisition consultant at Apple, and previously built leadership and executive teams at Benchling and led talent acquisition as a founding recruiter at a fintech startup.
He advises R&D Talent on executive search and on building scalable, data-driven recruiting processes that use AI and automation to deliver predictable results.
An indispensable partner.
“Iyad is an indispensable partner for any engineering leader trying to grow their team. He approaches ambitious hiring goals with enthusiasm, solutions and concrete proposals… Iyad is an excellent communicator and is able to connect, excite and influence potential candidates.”
The most productive hiring process.
“My group works on enabling various application stacks in hybrid cloud environments, so finding the right talent is plainly said – difficult… In the end, he not only found a strong candidate but also completed the entire process of getting him on board very smoothly… This has been the most productive recruitment process for me as the hiring manager.”
Learns fast, solves pragmatically.
“Ismail worked on my team at Google… During this time Ismail demonstrated an ability to learn quickly, provide pragmatic solutions and be agile in our ever-changing needs… His performance aligned well with our business needs, which ultimately led to successful outcomes.”
Offer acceptance, the best I’ve seen.
“He is extremely efficient at generating interest and building rapport with passive candidates. His best asset however is the ability to gain the candidates’ full trust when extending offers; his acceptance ratio is by far the best I have seen.”
Critical roles, filled quickly.
“Iyad has consistently shown his chops at sourcing and evaluating top-tier engineering talent… He’s highly empathetic, and employs a high-touch communications approach which helped us fill critical roles quickly and effectively.”
Doesn’t just fill roles. Builds teams.
“He doesn’t just fill roles—he contributes to building organizations… Through his contributions, we elevated the quality of talent entering our R&D organization, and his work had a lasting impact on the strength of those teams.”
We understand the talent we recruit and the companies that hire them.
Clear terms, honest feedback and no surprises.
Everyone in the process deserves candor and courtesy.
Tools make us faster. People make the decisions.
A few right candidates beat a pile of resumes.
To help ambitious technology companies find the hard-to-reach talent they need to build, scale and innovate.
