Affinity Search Partners

Technical recruiting for growing teams

Building a team is sequencing, not seat-filling.

When several technical roles open at once, the order you fill them matters as much as who you hire. We help founders and department heads decide who comes first, who follows, and which seats should be contract for now. Then we go find those people.

Plan the team with us
Team plan Illustrative order for a product and platform team SAMPLE FIRST NEXT AFTER THAT Platform lead Permanent Senior back-end Permanent Cloud consultant Contract Data engineer Permanent QA engineer Contract-to-hire Front-end engineer Permanent Analytics lead Permanent To be decided Depends on hire two Permanent seat Contract or contract-to-hire

Sample board. The roles, order and mix shown are illustrative, not a client's plan.

Sequencing hires

Who first, who next

A team of several roles is a plan, not a list. Most teams we help build get better when the first hire is chosen for what they make possible, not for how loud the gap is.

  • Start with the person who sets the bar

    The first hire usually shapes every hire after it. A strong lead helps write the next profiles, sits in the interviews and tells you when a candidate is not the right fit. Hiring that person first, even if it takes patience, saves rework on the rest.

  • Then the roles that unblock the others

    An application team cannot ship on infrastructure nobody owns. A data team cannot report on systems nobody has built. We look at what each role depends on and fill the dependencies before the roles that sit on top of them.

  • Leave room to change the plan

    Hire two often changes what hire three should be. A senior engineer who covers two disciplines may collapse two seats into one. We keep the plan written down and revisit it after every offer is accepted, and we say so when the plan is no longer right.

Contract and permanent on one team

Not every seat needs to be permanent on day one

The same team can carry contractors, contract-to-hire engineers and permanent staff at the same time. The question is which seat needs which arrangement, and when that should change.

Contract or consulting fits when

  • The work has a clear end, such as a migration, an integration or a security review.
  • You need a skill for one project that the team will not need every quarter.
  • The permanent lead is not hired yet and you want to keep moving without locking in the shape of the team.
  • Budget for the seat is approved for a period rather than a position.

Permanent fits when

  • Someone has to own a system, a product area or a group of people for years.
  • The role carries institutional knowledge you cannot afford to walk out the door.
  • The seat is part of how the company is valued, staffed and led.
  • Cultural fit matters as much as the skill set, and you want the person invested in the outcome.

Contract-to-hire sits between the two. It suits a seat you expect to be permanent when you want both sides to work together before committing. Whichever arrangement you choose, our screening is the same: skills, motivation, compensation alignment and references, with the same candour about fit.

How a search runs

Nine steps, repeated for each seat on the plan

The same process runs for every role, so a multi-role plan is a set of searches that share one definition of what a good fit looks like for your company.

  1. DefineAgree the role and get your own team aligned on it.
  2. ProfileWrite down the candidate we are looking for.
  3. SourceWarmest relationships first, then outward, with a focus on people not looking.
  4. ScreenOne scorecard for skills, motivation, compensation and references.
  5. ShortlistA small group of people worth your interview time.
  6. InterviewWe coordinate and pass feedback both ways quickly.
  7. OfferOffer strategy, including a plan for the counter-offer.
  8. CloseAcceptance, resignation and onboarding check-ins.
  9. Follow upCheck-ins with you and the hire as the first months unfold.
Capabilities

The seats we fill

Individual contributors, senior specialists and technology leaders across three areas, for technology companies, healthcare organizations, manufacturers and financial firms.

Cloud and infrastructure

The people who keep the platform up and the environment secure.

  • Cloud and platform engineers
  • Systems and network engineers
  • Infrastructure and support leads

Software development

The people who build the product and steer what gets built.

  • Software engineers, front end to back end
  • Project and product managers
  • Business analysts and QA engineers

Data and analytics

The people who turn what the business collects into decisions.

  • Data engineers and data scientists
  • Business intelligence developers
  • Data and reporting analysts

Leadership seats run across all three, from a first engineering manager to a head of data or a technology executive. Each can be filled on a contract, contract-to-hire or permanent basis, and we will tell you plainly if a search is not one we should take.

Our values

How we work with you

Affinity Search Partners was founded in 2013 and is based in Brentwood, Tennessee, working throughout Middle Tennessee and around the country. Five things shape how we show up on a search.

  • Integrity

    We say what we see, including when a role is priced wrong or a search is not a fit for us.

  • Tenacity

    Hard roles take persistence. We keep going after the easy sources run dry.

  • Generosity

    We share what we know about the market and the role, whether or not you hire us.

  • Fun

    Hiring is serious, and it still goes better when people enjoy working together on it.

  • Innovation

    We keep changing how we source and screen, because the market keeps changing too.

Bring us the whole plan, not just the first opening

Tell us which roles you are building toward and what the team has to deliver. We will come back with a suggested order, a view on which seats should be contract, and a plain read on how hard each search will be. No obligation, just a conversation.

Plan the team with us