01
Backend & Distributed Systems
Go, Rust, Java, and the people who keep services up at p99 — from senior ICs to systems architects.
Technical recruiting · Seattle 47.6°N
Engineering talent
that ships.
Lodestar is a boutique recruiting firm for engineering teams in the Pacific Northwest. We find the people who move your roadmap — and we don’t bury your inbox to do it.
Currently calibrating searches for backend, platform, and ML teams.
Roles we fill
Backend Distributed Systems Platform / Infra DevOps & SRE Data / ML Frontend Mobile Security Staff+ IC Eng Leadership Backend Distributed Systems Platform / Infra DevOps & SRE Data / ML Frontend Mobile Security Staff+ IC Eng Leadership
The problem
Most technical roles don’t fail at the offer.
They die in the pipeline.
A generalist agency sends 30 résumés, two of which can actually pass your loop. Your engineers burn afternoons screening noise. Six weeks later the req is still open and the hiring manager has quietly given up. We were built to fix exactly that gap.
// the lodestar principle
A lodestar is the one star sailors steer by because it doesn’t move.
That’s the job. While the market churns, we’re the fixed point your hiring plan can navigate against — one specialist who knows your stack, your bar, and your story.
What we recruit
One firm, the whole engineering org chart.
We don’t recruit for marketing, sales, and "tech" on the side. Engineering is the entire practice, which is why our screens actually hold up.
02
Platform, Infra & SRE
Cloud, Kubernetes, and reliability engineers who turn pages into postmortems and postmortems into uptime.
03
Data & Machine Learning
Data engineers, ML engineers, and applied scientists who ship models, not just notebooks.
04
Frontend & Mobile
Product engineers who care about the last 10% — React, TypeScript, Swift, Kotlin.
05
Security Engineering
AppSec, infra security, and detection engineers for teams that can’t afford to learn the hard way.
06
Engineering Leadership
EMs, directors, and Staff+ ICs — the multipliers who set the bar for everyone they hire after.
The standard we hold
21d
Median time to a vetted shortlist
3–5
Calibrated candidates per role, not 30
92%
Of placements still there at one year
47.6°N
Rooted in Seattle, working everywhere
// targets Lodestar engagements are built to hit, not historical averages
How we work
A search you can actually steer by.
1
Calibrate step 01
We sit with your eng leaders until we can tell a strong yes from a polite maybe — the same way your interviewers would.
2
Source step 02
Deep outbound into the passive market, not a re-post of your job to the same tired boards. The best engineers aren’t applying.
3
Vet step 03
A real technical screen before anyone reaches your loop. We protect your engineers’ calendars like they’re our own.
4
Shortlist step 04
Three to five people you’d genuinely hire, each with notes on motivation, level, and the exact reason they’d move.
5
Close step 05
We run the offer like a deal — counteroffers, competing processes, start-date logistics — so your yes stays a yes.
For engineering leaders
You have a roadmap and not enough people to build it.
Hand us one hard req. We’ll show you what a calibrated shortlist actually feels like — no retainer to find out.
Start a search →For engineers
You want the next move to be the right one, not just the next one.
We only pitch you roles we’d take ourselves, tell you the comp band up front, and never spray your résumé around town.
See how it works →“They sent four people. We hired two. The other two I’m still trying to poach. That’s the entire pitch — they actually understood the job.”
VP Engineering
Series B infrastructure startup · Seattle
Recent searches
placed
Staff Backend Engineer
Series C data platform
19 days to start
placed
Engineering Manager, Platform
PNW healthtech scale-up
31 days to start
placed
Senior ML Engineer
Seed-stage AI startup
24 days to start
Representative placements for this concept site — anonymized to protect candidate and client confidentiality.
Find your north.
Tell us about one role you’re struggling to fill. Thirty minutes, no retainer, no pressure — just a straight read on whether we can help.
Seattle, WA · 47.6062°N 122.3321°W