TOP3DEVS

About TOP3DEVS

TOP3DEVS places senior, AI-enabled developers with SaaS companies in North America. Over half our clients enjoy our complimentary position advisory before we source a single candidate.

Official hiring partner of Dan Martell’s SaaS Academy for over three years. We recruited the US Head of Engineering for Alex Hormozi’s GymLaunch, and have placed for CADTALK, ClickClaims, Castos, Search Atlas, CloseBot.ai, Convergent, LeadHelm, Broad Street Ads, and ImprovMX. Our founder has been part of Rob Walling’s MicroConf community for over ten years and advises founders in both communities on team structure and hiring.

THE PROBLEM WE USUALLY FIND FIRST

If you are a SaaS founder about to open an engineering role, there is a good chance the role is wrong. Not the salary, not the location. The role.

A founder who asks for a CTO often needs a hands-on Head of Engineering who codes and reviews PRs, not an executive who builds management layers and fights over strategy. A founder who asks for a Product Manager often needs a Business Analyst, because the roadmap is still the founder’s job and what they actually lack is someone to write specs and hold developers accountable. A founder who asks for a mid-level developer plus a support hire usually needs one senior who owns the area end to end.

Getting this wrong is expensive in a way that has nothing to do with a recruiter’s fee. A bad senior hire costs roughly 30 percent of first-year salary directly, two to three times that indirectly, and three to six months of momentum. The wrong role costs more, because it keeps costing after the person is competent.

WHAT WE DO DIFFERENTLY

We are a headhunting firm, not a staffing agency, a dev shop, or a body shop. Our operating thesis is that today, one senior developer working with AI tools outperforms a team of four to five juniors, and that the work which used to justify large teams (boilerplate, glue code, ticket triage, documentation) is now largely automated. That changes what a SaaS company should hire, not just who.

So we start by questioning the role, not by sourcing. That conversation happens on the first call, is free, and comes before any contract exists. When we think you should not spend the money at all, we say so.

HOW IT WORKS

1. Define the role. One call with our founder to pressure-test what you are actually hiring for. Free, no contract. Over half of clients change the role here.
2. We source and screen. Around fifty candidates reviewed and screened for soft skills, motivation, and company fit.
3. A scale-up CTO interviews them. Four to seven candidates reach a live conversational technical interview run by a working engineering leader, not a quiz.
4. You get three candidates. Three to six weeks from start, and you run one culture-fit call.

97 percent of candidates never reach your calendar, and 80 percent of clients hire from this first shortlist.

WHY THE CTO INTERVIEW MATTERS

It is the stage most recruiters cut, because it costs real money. We keep it because vetting in 2026 is harder than it was three years ago. Resume inflation is at a record high, and remote candidates can pipe real-time AI answers into an interview. A conversation with someone who has actually built and run systems catches that. A structured test does not.

Beyond code, we screen for five things that separate a product partner from a ticket executor: proactive communication, including the ability to explain a technical tradeoff to a non-technical founder; native-level English, meaning the developer can run a customer call rather than merely understand a written requirement; daily use of AI tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Copilot, which in 2026 is a screening filter and not a bonus; genuine curiosity about your industry; and autonomous judgment, including the ability to decide what not to build and push back on a feature with a business argument.

“TOP3DEVS has come through with big success stories helping our members.”

Johnny Page, CEO, SaaS Academy

TERMS WITH A 10-MONTH GUARANTEE BUILT-IN

Our fee is 20 percent of annual salary, billed across ten monthly installments rather than invoiced as a lump sum on the start date. Every placement carries a ten-month success guarantee: if the hire leaves for any reason inside that window, billing stops. Most recruiters guarantee one to two months, which expires before you know whether the hire worked.

WE ALSO DO

Contractor and consultant matching where you need capacity rather than a permanent hire, with no commitment fee and no lock-in. Standalone CTO-level technical interviews for candidates you sourced yourself, at half our standard fee, which for a non-technical founder is the highest-value part of the process to hand off. Fractional CTOs from a network of scale-up engineering leaders for architecture reviews and technical due diligence.

WHO THIS IS FOR

SaaS and AI companies in North America, typically between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in ARR, hiring their first or next senior engineer or their first engineering leader. Our founder previously owned an 80-person software house in Ukraine and runs every one of these calls himself.

If you need junior developers, sourcing in Southeast Asia or India, or talent outside engineering and product, we are the wrong partner and will tell you so on the first call.

Start with the conversation about the role. It is free, and it is the part that changes the outcome.

Key Features

• Senior Developer Search. Direct placement of senior, AI-enabled software engineers. 20 percent of annual salary, paid in ten monthly installments. Ten-month success guarantee: if the hire leaves for any reason, billing stops. Shortlist of three in three to six weeks.
• Every search runs through the Verified Hire Framework — five pillars covering identity, work history, presence, specialist judgement, and a written verification dossier delivered to the client. Built as a direct response to AI-generated candidates, deepfake interviews and synthetic identity risk, and to the deployer liability landing under the EU AI Act.
• We also operate Olympus Intelligence, a dedicated forensic payroll investigation and due diligence line: pre-appointment intelligence, internal threat work, and sensitive corporate investigations, delivered on a fixed fee.
• Proof, not promises. 98% three-year client retention. 99% offer acceptance. 14-day average time-to-hire. Ten years without a rebate. 15M+ global candidate reach.
• Global 100 Best Staffing & Recruiting Business of the Year 2026.

Candidate Locations

• United States of America
• Canada, Mexico
• Brazil
• Colombia
• Argentina
• Ukraine
• Poland
• Romania
• Hungary
• Balkans