The Challenge
NeuralPath, a Series B AI infrastructure startup, closed a $28M round with aggressive product milestones. Their board expected three new product lines within 6 months. With 12 engineers, they needed at least 38 to deliver. They had no internal recruiting team, no ATS, and no established hiring process.
Previous hires had come through founder networks, which worked for the first 12 but could not scale. They tried two external agencies - one produced zero qualified candidates in 3 weeks, the other sent irrelevant profiles.
"We went from 'hire 2-3 engineers when we find good ones' to 'hire 26 engineers in 90 days or miss our milestones.' The approaches that got us to 12 could not get us to 38."
The Approach
Phase 1 (Weeks 1-2): Foundation. NeuralPath defined role profiles for 4 team archetypes: ML engineers, backend infrastructure, frontend/product, and DevOps/platform. WorkSwipe's AI built matching models for each archetype and surfaced an initial pool of 180+ candidates.
Phase 2 (Weeks 3-6): Sprint hiring. Running 8-12 interviews per week across all 4 tracks simultaneously. Each track had a designated lead interviewer and a compressed 3-stage process: AI match review, technical screen (60 min live coding), team fit (45 min).
Phase 3 (Weeks 7-10): Closing sprint. Focused on offer management, competing offer handling, and start date coordination. Staggered start dates in cohorts of 4-6 to avoid overwhelming onboarding.
Phase 4 (Weeks 11-13): Onboarding optimization. Final hires started, buddy system established, 30-day check-ins scheduled.
Results
- 26 engineers hired in 90 days - From 12 to 38 total engineering headcount
- Average time-to-hire: 18 days per individual hire (vs. 45-day industry average)
- 4 parallel hiring tracks - ML, backend, frontend, DevOps running simultaneously
- Offer acceptance rate: 78% (26 of 33 offers)
- 6-month retention: 94% (1 departure, voluntary relocation)
- Cost savings: $340K vs. agency fees at 20% of salary
"The cohort-based onboarding was key. New hires joined in groups of 4-6, which meant they had peers going through the same experience. It built team cohesion faster than one-at-a-time hiring."