The engineering leader you want to hire is already interviewing.
Just not with you, yet.
Hummus Wolf represents engineering leaders, Managers to Directors, VPs and CTOs, who are actively in the market right now. When you open a mandate, we don’t start a search; we make introductions from a live pipeline. Calibrated shortlist in 5 business days. Fee due only when your hire starts.
18% of first-year base · first shortlist in 5 business days · 90-day free replacement
Where the leaders in our pipeline have landed
Posting a req isn’t a leadership strategy.
The leaders worth hiring aren't refreshing job boards. They're already in conversations, and the question is whose.
We fixed this from the other side. We already represent the leaders, so hiring them is an introduction, not a cold hunt.
From open mandate to signed leader, without the busywork.
One point of contact owns your search end to end. Your leadership team only spends time where its judgment matters.
Scope the mandate
A 30-minute call on the leadership role: the charter, the level, span of control, comp/equity band and what a great leader looks like for this org. No retainer, no commitment to start.
Calibrated shortlist in 5 days
We match your mandate against our live pipeline and hand you a calibrated shortlist of pre-vetted, genuinely-interested leaders, with our notes on scope, span and fit, within 5 business days.
You interview, we run the process
We schedule, prep candidates, manage confidential conversations, chase feedback and keep momentum. Your leadership team spends its time on judgment, not logistics.
Offer, equity & close support
We help you land the leader by benchmarking comp and equity, managing counteroffers and keeping the candidate committed through to their start date.
We don’t start your search. It’s already running.
Every day we run done-for-you job searches for engineering leaders. Your next Director or VP is probably already in that pipeline.
The shortlist already exists
We represent engineering leaders, the same Managers, Directors, VPs and CTOs you're trying to reach, who are actively in the market right now. So your candidates aren't cold-sourced when you call; they're already in our pipeline, already looking, already talking to us. We introduce, we don't hunt.
Leadership is the whole desk
We recruit engineering leadership exclusively, from engineering managers to directors, VPs, Heads of Engineering and CTOs across software, data and platform. No generalist desk, no junior-IC churn. We calibrate to scope, span of control and the org you're building.
Vetted for leadership signal
Every candidate is screened by a team that has read thousands of leadership resumes and sat in real hiring loops, for track record scaling orgs, not keyword matches. You get a shortlist with written context on why each leader clears your bar.
Retained-search caliber, contingency economics
The rigor of a retained search, with confidential outreach, calibrated shortlists and close support, without the retainer. 18% of first-year base, paid only when your leader starts, backed by an AI engine that maps the leadership market continuously.
A sample of the pipeline, this week.
Anonymized. Updated monthly. When we say the shortlist already exists, this is what we mean.
VP / Head of Engineering
6 in market- Focus
- Fintech · infra · dev tools
- Comp
- $260–340K base
- Location
- SF · NYC · Remote
Director of Engineering
14 in market- Focus
- Consumer · B2B SaaS · ML platform
- Comp
- $220–290K base
- Location
- Remote-first
Senior EM / EM
20+ in market- Focus
- Software · data · platform
- Comp
- $190–240K base
- Location
- US · all models
CTO / Founding eng leader
4 in market- Focus
- Seed–Series B
- Comp
- Equity-weighted
- Location
- Comp flexible
Engineering leadership is the whole desk.
We go deep on one market instead of shallow on all of them. First-line managers through the C-suite.
Engineering Managers & Sr. Managers
First-line to multi-team leadership
Directors & Sr. Directors of Engineering
Scaling orgs 10 → 100+
VPs & SVPs of Engineering
Function-wide leadership & strategy
Heads of Engineering / Founding leaders
Early-stage & 0 → 1 orgs
Data, ML & Platform leadership
Directors & VPs across data/infra
CTOs & technical executives
Exec and board-facing hires
Recent outcomes for leaders in our pipeline
Retained-search caliber, without the retainer.
No retainer. No upfront cost. No fee at all unless your leader actually starts.
At Director+ levels, well below the 25–35% retainers of traditional executive search · no fee at all unless your leader starts · 90-day free replacement
Start a search →No win, no fee. If we don’t place someone, you owe nothing.
What you'll never get from us: resume dumps, keyword-matched profiles, or candidates padded in to look busy. A Hummus Wolf shortlist is 3–5 leaders, each with written context on why they clear your bar. If we don't have your person, we say so in the intake call, before you've spent an hour with us.
A person owns your mandate, not a portal.
One point of contact scopes the role, runs the search and closes the hire. Here's who you're working with.
Varun Kirti
Founder
Founder of Hummus Wolf. Owns every client mandate end to end, scoping the role, running the search, and closing the hire.
LinkedInBehind every shortlist is our calibration team: senior engineers from Amazon-scale orgs who have sat in the hiring loops your candidates will face. They sign off on fit before a single name reaches you.
Questions leadership hiring teams ask us.
How are you different from a retained executive search firm?+
Retained firms start a cold search the day you sign and bill 25–35% upfront regardless of outcome. We don't start cold. We already represent engineering leaders who are actively in the market, so your Directors and VPs are already in our pipeline. That's why we deliver a calibrated shortlist in 5 business days, and why our fee is 18% of first-year base, paid only when your leader actually starts.
Do candidates pay you too?+
Yes, and that's precisely why our pipeline is real. Engineering leaders hire us to run their job search end to end, which means everyone we introduce to you is genuinely, actively in market, not a cold-sourced profile flattered into taking a call. We're transparent with both sides about this model. Our incentive is simple: we only get paid when a placement happens and sticks, so we optimize for real fit, not volume. If we don't have strong leaders for your role, we'll tell you on the intake call.
What does it cost?+
Our fee is 18% of the hire's first-year base salary, due only when the leader starts, with no retainer and no upfront cost. At Director+ levels that sits well below the 25–35% typical for retained search, and every placement is backed by a 90-day free-replacement guarantee.
What levels do you focus on?+
Engineering leadership exclusively, from engineering managers and directors to VPs, Heads of Engineering and CTOs, across software, data, ML and platform. That focus is the point: we go deep on the leadership market instead of running a generalist desk across every function and level.
How fast will I see candidates?+
Because our leadership pipeline is already live, most clients get a first pre-vetted shortlist within 5 business days of scoping the mandate, not the weeks or months a cold retained search usually takes.
Can you run confidential or backfill searches?+
Yes. Much of leadership hiring is sensitive: replacing an incumbent, a stealth mandate, or an early exec hire you're not ready to announce. We run these confidentially, with discreet outreach and controlled candidate messaging.
What if the hire doesn't work out?+
Every placement carries a 90-day free-replacement guarantee: if the leader leaves or isn't the right fit within the first 90 days, we run the search again at no additional fee.
Have a leadership role open? Let’s fill it.
On the call we’ll tell you straight whether we already have strong leaders for your role. If we don’t, we’ll say so. No retainer means we have no reason to waste your time or ours.
Typical response within one business day · US-based engineering leadership