Recruiting for cloud, platform, DevOps, and SRE teams
Keystone Scout is a specialist recruiting firm led by a practicing lead cloud engineer. Every candidate is screened engineer to engineer. Every candidate comes with a written report on fit to your job description.
Senior Platform Engineer
Candidate APlatform Engineer at a Series C fintech company
Technical fit to the job description
6 of 7 requirements met+ 3 more requirements in the full report
Leadership and soft skills
The problem
Most recruiters match keywords. A résumé lists AWS, Terraform, and Kubernetes. It does not show whether the engineer designed the platform or only followed the runbook. Your senior engineers then spend interview hours on people who were never a fit.
A generalist recruiter cannot tell deep infrastructure experience from a list of tools.
You receive a stack of résumés. Your own team does the real screening.
Technical skill is half of a good hire. The other half is how the engineer leads, communicates, and handles an incident at 2 a.m.
Our approach
Keystone Scout is led by a lead cloud engineer who has led engineering teams. That experience shapes every screen in two ways.
We ask about real systems, real trade-offs, and real failures. We test how a candidate designs, builds, and operates cloud infrastructure. Then we compare the answers to each requirement in your job description.
We rate leadership and soft skills, such as communication, ownership, and collaboration. The ratings come from experience leading engineers, not from a personality quiz.
I am a lead cloud engineer, and I have led engineering teams. I know what strong cloud work looks like. I also know what a team needs from each person on it.
I send you only engineers I would want on my own team.
The fit report
Each report maps the candidate to your job description, one requirement at a time. It rates leadership and soft skills. It names the gaps too. You know why a candidate is on your shortlist before the first interview.
Every report includes:
Candidate APlatform Engineer at a Series C fintech company
Illustrative sample. The candidate and all details are fictional. Real reports are shared only with the candidate’s consent.
How a search works
We learn the role, the stack, the team, and what success looks like in the first six months.
We look for engineers who have done this exact work. We reach out directly, including to engineers who are not looking for a job.
The founder runs a technical and team-fit screen with each candidate.
You get a short list. Each candidate has a written fit report. Your team interviews only strong candidates.
You pay only when you hire. The 90-day guarantee starts on the hire’s start date.
Specialization
We recruit only for cloud, platform, and infrastructure roles. That focus keeps every screen precise.
Terms
You should not carry the risk of a search. We do.
Our fee is a percentage of the hire’s first-year base salary. We agree on it before the search starts. Candidates you do not hire cost you nothing.
If your hire leaves within 90 days of the start date, we find a replacement at no cost. If the replacement also leaves within 90 days, we refund the fee.
You work directly with the founder from intake call to signed offer. Your search is never passed to a junior recruiter.
Full terms are set out in the fee agreement.
For engineers
Start with a short call. Tell us about the role. We will tell you honestly whether we can help.
Book an intro call(opens in a new tab)Or email alex@keystonescout.com