Engineering executive search is a retained, confidential search for the engineer who will run a technical group, titled VP of engineering, director of engineering, chief engineer or discipline principal depending on the firm. Discovered Search runs those searches for architecture and engineering firms, manufacturers and product companies. The engineers who can hold one of these seats already hold one somewhere else, and they don’t answer job posts. In a licensed discipline the pool is far smaller than a job board makes it look. Typical time to fill is 4 to 12 weeks for a quality hire.
The Engineering Leadership Seats We Fill
At an architecture or engineering firm, the principal or department head over structural, civil or MEP work, the director of engineering, plus the delivery manager who owns dates and budgets across a book of jobs. At a manufacturer, the chief engineer, the director of engineering, and the leaders over design, sustaining, manufacturing and quality engineering. At a product company, the VP of engineering or the head of platform.
Technology leadership runs as a separate search, because the market and the way you test a candidate are both different there. IT executive search covers the CIO, CTO and VP of IT seats. For the engineers below that leader, the flat monthly fee covers the whole bench at once. Our pages on hiring a software engineer and working with an engineering recruiter cover that side. Firm-wide hiring for design firms is on the architecture and engineering page.
The License Narrows the Pool Before the Search Starts
A principal seat in a licensed discipline needs a PE in the states where the firm works, in the right discipline, with enough years of record behind it to seal drawings. Reciprocity between states takes months, so an otherwise ideal candidate may be unable to sign the work for the better part of a year.
That shrinks a national pool to a list you could write on one page, and no amount of advertising spend changes the size of it. So the scorecard names the states, the disciplines and the licenses on day one, and the search goes after the engineers who already hold them. How we find candidates covers the outreach.
Promoting Your Strongest Engineer Costs Twice
Most firms fill the seat by promoting their best producer. The firm loses the production, gains an untested manager, and often finds within a year that the engineer wants the technical work back.
A retained search puts outside candidates beside the internal one against the same scorecard, so a promotion becomes a decision with evidence under it. We write that scorecard first. It names what the group has to deliver in year one, which calls the seat owns, plus what the leader inherits in staff, backlog and clients. We screen for integrity first, then attitude, then cognitive ability, and weigh personality last, because personality predicts on-the-job performance least well. How we screen candidates has the detail.
The search stays private on both sides. Your current leader doesn’t hear about it from a job board, and a candidate running a department somewhere else can’t have it known that they talked to you. Every search runs on the FACT Driven Hiring System, which stands for Framework, Attraction, Candidate evaluation and Training. The training part is a 90-day plan, so you measure the new leader against the scorecard in the first quarter rather than at a review a year later.
What Engineering Executive Search Costs
Three models, and the right one depends on the seat rather than on the salary attached to it.
| Model | What you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|
| Retained executive search | A retainer against one leadership seat, quoted on the search | A principal, chief engineer or VP of engineering seat that has to stay private and can’t be a mis-hire |
| Fractional recruiting (our flat monthly fee) | $1,500 a month on a six-month commitment, or $2,500 month to month, covering every open role | Project engineers, designers and team leads alongside 2 to 3 other hires a quarter |
| Contingency agency | 20 to 30 percent of first-year salary, per hire. A $120,000 engineer at 20 percent is $24,000 | One opportunistic hire every few years |
Six months of the flat fee is $9,000 and covers every role you open in that window. One contingency placement on a $120,000 engineer is $24,000 and covers one seat. Fractional engagements run month to month for up to 12 months and carry a 30-day money-back guarantee. Advertising usually costs nothing on top, about $300 a month per role at the very most. How the monthly fee works sets out what the fee includes, and fractional recruiting against retained search compares the two on a single seat.
A retainer buys one seat filled privately, with the search running until you hire. The monthly fee doesn’t promise that. Retained executive search explains when that fee earns itself.
When a Retained Search Is the Wrong Call
Four project engineers and a drafter is a volume problem, and the flat monthly fee covers all five openings for less than one retained search. A team lead or a project engineer at a 20-person firm usually fits that fee too, alongside whatever else you have open. The roles a flat monthly fee covers lists them. A firm under 50 employees that wants to run its own hiring can license the self-serve platform for $1,400 a year. And a firm with a recruiter who fills its seats on time doesn’t need a second one.
A retained search earns its fee on the seat that decides what your engineering group produces for the next five years. Bring us the seat, the scorecard you have, and what the last engineer in it delivered or failed to deliver. We’ll price the right model against your hiring plan and say which one fits, including the case where neither of ours fits. Our executive search service covers the process across industries.