Junior, mid-level, senior. 3 days to first shortlist.
Years of experience is a rough proxy. What matters is scope of ownership: who can run a feature, who can pick the stack, who can lead an incident. Of the 3,000+ professionals in our network, 2,700+ are already classified by seniority, ready to be matched.
The three levels
Years of experience is a rough proxy. What matters is scope of ownership and the kind of decisions someone is ready to make.
0 to 2 years
Owns tickets within a sprint.
Best at
Not for
2 to 5 years
Owns features end-to-end.
Best at
Not for
5+ years
Owns systems and outcomes.
Best at
Not for
Annual cost by level
These are real annual ranges for full-time engineers, fully loaded. LATAM numbers reflect what our placed engineers earn, including our fees. US numbers come from market reports for 2026.
The savings get bigger as seniority goes up. The judgment gap is where most of the value sits, and the gap is wider at senior level.
Junior (0 to 2 years)
Mid-Level (2 to 5 years)
Senior (5+ years)
Decision matrix
Most hiring mistakes happen at this step. Match the level to the scope of the work, not to what feels safe on paper.
Greenfield product. No existing codebase. No tech lead.
Someone has to pick the stack, set conventions, and own the architecture. A junior or mid will guess. A senior will reason.
Established codebase with clear patterns. Steady feature roadmap.
The hard architectural calls are already made. You need someone who ships features cleanly without daily oversight.
Well-defined tickets, bug fixes, maintenance work.
Senior engineers get bored fast on this work and leave. Match the scope to the level.
Scaling a team that already has a tech lead.
Add 2-3 mids for execution speed and 1 senior for code review depth. Your tech lead stays focused on direction.
Complex domain: distributed systems, ML pipelines, security.
The tradeoffs are domain-specific. Pattern matching from past experience is what makes the work safe.
Growing the team while keeping costs predictable.
Mid owns the feature, junior pairs and learns. Output is high, cost is sustainable, and you grow people from inside.
What goes wrong
We have placed engineers at every level since 2024. These four patterns explain most of the bad hires we have seen.
It feels safe. It isn't. A senior engineer doing ticket-work gets bored in a few months and leaves. You spent senior money on retention risk. Match the level to the actual scope.
A junior with strong fundamentals is a great hire. But asking them to pick the database or design the auth layer is unfair. They will guess. The damage shows up six months later.
Mids are productive without hand-holding, but they are still building judgment. If you need someone to run incident response, set technical direction, or unblock a team, you need a senior. Paying mid rates for senior work always backfires.
Ten years of doing the same thing is not senior. Five years across different teams, stacks, and failure modes often is. We evaluate scope of ownership and decisions made under ambiguity, not just the date on the resume.
How we vet at every level
The depth changes by seniority. The dimensions do not. A junior demonstrates fundamentals; a senior demonstrates judgment. Both go through the same five-part evaluation.
Deep knowledge of their stack, calibrated to their level. We probe tradeoffs, not just syntax.
Depth by level
Structured behavioral interview. B2 minimum. We assess writing, not just speaking.
Depth by level
Practical use of Copilot, Cursor, Claude for real workflow tasks. We test judgment, not prompt count.
Depth by level
Proactive updates, judgment under ambiguity, and finishing what they start. This is where most fake seniors fail.
Depth by level
Comfort with direct feedback, async-first work, and US team norms. Familiarity comes from experience, not a checklist.
Depth by level
Seniority FAQ
Ready to hire?
No retainer fees. Two-week trial at every level. We send a shortlist in 3 days, you pick, we handle the rest.
