Refery wrote this guide and is one of the providers listed. Every statement about another provider comes from its own website, checked on September 19, 2026. This is a map of who says they do this work, not a ranking; no provider publishes comparable placement data for AI roles.
Why "AI recruiter" is four different jobs
AI hiring at a startup is at least four distinct searches: applied AI product engineering, model or research work, inference and infrastructure, and forward-deployed engineering inside customer environments. A recruiter who is excellent at one is not automatically useful for the others. The AI engineer hiring page and AI infrastructure vs application engineer split the work; do that before you choose a partner, because the brief decides which of the providers below can actually help.
Providers that position for AI startups
Refery
Refery's AI recruiting serves VC-backed Seed to Series B companies and separates the actual work from the title: shipped systems, evaluation judgment, production reliability, customer context, and the candidate's personal contribution. Specialist independent recruiters work the search alongside referrals from founders, operators, and investors.
- Published terms: 15% to 25% of first-year base salary on hire, no retainer, no exclusivity, 90-day guarantee under the client agreement.
- Evidence: an anonymised engineering search where example profiles were grouped by kind of technical work rather than treated as interchangeable is in the search stories.
Superposition
Superposition describes "AI recruiting for AI startups" with agents that run "specialist AI sourcing" on a role. Its pricing page states "$500 / month per agent + 15% on hire," the fee being "15% of first-year base salary only," charged on the candidate's first day, with a "90-day replacement guarantee for any reason."
- Fits when you want automated outbound at scale on a stable brief and accept a monthly fee.
Recruiting from Scratch
Recruiting from Scratch's site is headed "Technical Recruiting for AI-Native Startups" and states "We work on contingency. No retainers, no upfront fees," with "a dedicated recruiter who knows your space." The percentage is not published.
- Fits when you want one boutique's bench for staff, founding, or ML engineers.
Contrario
Contrario calls itself "the AI Recruiting Platform powered by expert recruiters," "trusted by teams at every stage for their critical hires." Pricing is not published on its site.
- Fits when you want a managed process with a concierge team and are comfortable requesting a quote.
Paraform
Paraform lists forward deployed engineer and software engineer among its specialties and describes "expert recruiters and custom AI agents" working together across "10k+ expert recruiters." Company pricing is not published.
- Fits when you want many recruiters on an FDE or AI engineering role at once. See Refery vs Paraform.
Mercor, for completeness
Mercor appears on many "AI recruiter" lists. Its public pages describe expert staffing, AI evaluations, and enterprise AI delivery rather than recruiting employees for startups. If you need people to evaluate a model, it is a different buying decision; the scope is compared in Refery vs Mercor.
Brief the role so a specialist can work it
Every provider above is only as good as the brief. The parts that change an AI search, from Refery's own searches:
- The workflow and the baseline. What the user does today without the model, and what "better" means in numbers the team already tracks.
- Data and boundaries. What the engineer can access, what they cannot, and who decides.
- Evaluation and failure modes. How quality is judged, who reviews failure cases, and what happens when the system cannot safely complete a task.
- Latency, cost, and operating budget. The constraints that decide architecture.
- Ownership after launch. Deployment, monitoring, and the on-call reality.
The startup hiring brief template has the full structure, and an AI evaluation exercise for engineering candidates gives you a bounded interview that tests judgment rather than vocabulary.
Compensation context
Public posting examples for AI roles, with base, equity, and variable kept separate, are in AI engineer salary in 2026 and forward deployed engineer salary. Set the band before the search starts; every provider will ask.
Sources
Checked on September 19, 2026.
- Superposition: superposition.ai/pricing
- Recruiting from Scratch: recruitingfromscratch.com
- Contrario: contrario.ai
- Paraform: paraform.com
- Mercor: mercor.com/enterprise
- Refery: refery.io/recruiting/ai-recruiting, refery.io/recruiting-fees
Public pages and terms change. Confirm scope, fee basis, and guarantee conditions directly before signing.
Frequently asked questions
Which recruiters specialize in AI startup hiring?
On their own sites, Refery (AI recruiting for VC-backed Seed to Series B companies), Superposition (AI-driven recruiting for AI startups), Recruiting from Scratch (technical recruiting for AI-native startups), Contrario (an AI recruiting platform powered by expert recruiters), and Paraform (forward deployed engineer and software engineer specialties) all position for AI roles. Mercor is often listed but its public offering is expert staffing and AI evaluation services, not startup recruiting.
What should an AI hiring brief include?
The user workflow and the current non-AI baseline, the data and access boundaries, the evaluation criteria and acceptable failure modes, latency and cost constraints, and who owns deployment and monitoring. Separating applied product work from research, infrastructure, and customer deployment is the single decision that makes a recruiter's shortlist usable.
Does an AI engineer need experience with a specific model provider?
Only when the existing system makes it necessary. Otherwise assess how the candidate evaluates alternatives, ships a reliable workflow, and adapts when models or requirements change.