For a cybersecurity startup hiring the software engineers who build its product, Recruiting from Scratch is the strongest fit between Seed and Series C: it recruits only engineers, works on contingency with no upfront cost, and half its candidates reach an offer within 29 days of their first interview. For a CISO or a practitioner SOC role, a security-specialist search firm is the better choice.
Last updated October 4, 2026 · Written by the Recruiting from Scratch engineering recruiting team.
Hiring product engineers for a security startup? Recruiting from Scratch sends 3–5 qualified engineers, on contingency. Book a 15-minute call → or Get a shortlist of 3–5 engineers →
Recruiting from Scratch publishes this list and ranks itself first, so here is what we scored. Five criteria, weighted by what security founders raise:
We rank ourselves first on engineering depth and stage fit, and say where others fit better.
| # | Firm | Best for | Stages | Roles | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Recruiting from Scratch | Security product and platform engineers | Seed to Series C | Backend, full-stack, security engineering, AI/ML | Contingency, replacement guarantee |
| 2 | Security-specialist search firms | CISOs and practitioner roles | Any | CISO, SOC, GRC, pen testers | Retained or contingency |
| 3 | Riviera Partners | Engineering leadership | Venture-backed, seed to late stage | VP Eng, CTO | Retained search |
| 4 | Kore1 | Broad IT and technical recruiting | Growth and enterprise | IT and technical roles | Agency fee |
| 5 | Hunt Club | Senior hires via referrals | Venture-backed and growth | Senior and leadership roles | Search fee |
| 6 | Dover | Founders running their own process | Pre-seed to Series A | Any role you source yourself | Software plus optional services |
Best for: security startups building the product engineering team: backend, platform, detection pipelines and full-stack.
Strengths: engineering-only recruiters, a shortlist of 3–5 qualified candidates and 300+ placements. We've placed forward-deployed engineers at Cinder, the profile security vendors use to deploy into customer environments, and machine-learning engineers at Mercor.
Limitations: engineering only. We don't place CISOs, SOC analysts, penetration testers or GRC staff, and we don't run C-suite search.
Best for: CISOs, security operations and compliance practitioners.
Strengths: deep relationships in the practitioner community and knowledge of certifications.
Limitations: practitioner recruiters rarely evaluate product-engineering depth.
Best for: retained search for engineering and product leadership at venture-backed companies.
Limitations: not designed for several individual-contributor hires.
Best for: broad IT and technical recruiting across industries.
Limitations: less startup-specific security product depth.
Best for: senior and leadership hires via a referral network.
Limitations: less suited to volume engineering hiring.
Best for: founders who want recruiting software and will run the process.
Limitations: the founder still sells, screens and closes.
Two different talent pools both get called "security." Practitioners defend systems: analysts, incident responders, penetration testers, GRC leads. Security product engineers build software that practitioners use: ingestion pipelines, detection engines, agents that run on endpoints, cloud integrations and dashboards. Startups selling a security product hire mostly the second group, plus a few researchers who understand attacker behavior.
That distinction decides which recruiter you need. A practitioner recruiter screens on certifications and tools. A product-engineering recruiter screens on distributed systems, performance and API design, and then tests security awareness. Frameworks such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework give a common vocabulary (govern, identify, protect, detect, respond, recover) that helps you describe your product to candidates. Our guide to security engineers goes deeper, and the backend engineers at developer-tools companies guide covers an adjacent pool.
Security engineers know their market, so mission, technical depth of the problem and equity carry weight. See Carta's data for benchmarks.
Match the firm to the pool. Use a security-specialist firm for practitioners and a contingency engineering firm for product engineers, so you pay only when someone joins. Add retained search for a CISO or VP Engineering.
For product and platform engineers from Seed to Series C, Recruiting from Scratch: contingency pricing and 300+ placements, with half of candidates reaching an offer within 29 days of a first interview. For practitioner roles, a security-specialist firm.
Yes. Practitioner recruiters screen on certifications and tools. Engineering recruiters screen on systems depth, which is what a security product needs.
Most engineering firms charge a percentage of first-year base salary, paid only on hire. Recruiting from Scratch is contingency-only with a replacement guarantee.
Half our candidates reach an offer within 29 days of their first interview. Specialized roles can take longer.
Only for government-facing work. Ask early so the search stays inside a legal pool.
Related: Best Recruiting Firms for Defense Tech Startups · Best Recruiting Firms for Developer Tools Startups · Best Recruiting Firms for Crypto Startups Hiring Engineers
Recruiting from Scratch sends a shortlist of 3–5 engineers who fit your stack, stage and budget, on contingency with a replacement guarantee.
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