Who we work with
Team design and first platform hires for Series A to C AI companies
Kernavique helps Series A to C AI companies make their first platform and infrastructure hires in the right order. A Capability Blueprint sets out the roles, the sequence, the mix of contract and permanent people, and what each costs, as a written plan you can take to your board. Search can then fill the permanent roles, from platform engineers to a head of AI platform, and Capacity supplies engineers on contract while the team forms.
Last updated
Series A to C companies
What you are up against
The first hires set the architecture
Your first platform and infrastructure engineers decide how models are trained, served and monitored, and everyone hired after them inherits those choices. Hiring them in the wrong order is expensive to undo.
You are bidding against the labs
In ads we read on October 11, 2026, OpenAI offers $185K to $300K for a Forward Deployed Engineer in San Francisco, and Palantir $135,000 to $200,000 a year in New York. A Series A to C company is making offers to the same engineers as the AI labs and the largest platforms, so each offer has to rest on evidence.
Customers expect engineers in the field
Enterprise customers expect someone to fit the product to their data and their workflow, and a signed customer will not always wait while you hire one.
Every senior hire is a board question
At this stage the board asks what each senior hire is for and what it costs. A plan that shows the sequence, the cost and the contract and permanent mix answers that before it is asked.
How we help
- Capability Blueprint
Advisory
The roles your platform needs, the order to hire them, the contract and permanent mix and what each costs, ending in a build-versus-buy recommendation. You own the plan whether or not we deliver it.
- Engineering search
Search
Permanent platform, LLM, MLOps and forward deployed engineers, against a specification we write back to you after the brief call.
- Leadership search
Search
A head of AI platform or head of infrastructure, run as a dedicated search from brief to start.
- Platform engineers
Capacity
LLM, MLOps and AI infrastructure engineers on contract through their own companies, for a defined scope while the permanent hires are made.
- Contract to permanent
Capacity
Start an engineer on contract and make them an employee at the end of the term, once both sides have tested the fit on real work.
Questions buyers ask
- We are about to make our first platform hire. Do we need a Capability Blueprint first?
- Not always. If you know the role and where it sits, we can start the search straight away. If you are unsure which role comes first, or whether to build a team, buy a platform or bring in experts, the Blueprint answers that before you commit headcount.
- Should our first infrastructure engineers be permanent or on contract?
- It depends on what you need to own. Work at the core of your product is best held by permanent engineers, while a defined piece of work with an end date suits contract. Contract to permanent lets you start one way and finish the other.
- How long does it take to hire a forward deployed engineer?
- We found no employer-published or independent figure for it, only estimates from vendors that sell hiring services, which we do not repeat. We agree the shortlist timing with you at the brief call, based on the role and the market. Engineers on contract can carry the work while the search runs.
- We have no in-house hiring team. Can you run the whole process?
- Yes. We write the specification back to you after the brief, approach and assess people, run the interviews and stay involved through the first 90 days. You make the decision.
Terms on this page
- LLM
- Large language model, the kind of model behind chat assistants and many AI products.
- MLOps
- Machine learning operations: deploying, monitoring and maintaining models in production.