Menu
Services/Staffing & Recruiting

Finding the unicorns.

Career technical recruiters who specialize in finding unicorns — the hard-to-source technical talent other firms miss. Direct-hire, contract, and contract-to-hire.

Senior hires, matched by recruiters who specialize.

You have an open req where the first three hires will shape the next three years. We work with a small number of search clients at a time so we can stay close to each one — we specialize in difficult-to-hire roles.

Schedule a call
01
Technical evaluation
Every candidate is vetted against the technical bar of the role — not a keyword list.
02
Specialist focus
We focus on difficult-to-hire technical roles other firms struggle to fill.
03
Honest guidance
We'll tell you if the role is mis-scoped before we run the search. That's the work.
04
Guarantee-backed
Direct-hire placements include a standard replacement guarantee. No fine-print clawbacks.
What we place

Four role verticals, deep bench in each.

Cybersecurity

SOC analysts, detection engineers, cloud security architects, GRC leads, CISOs, and incident responders. Cleared and commercial.

Cloud & Infrastructure

Azure, AWS, and GCP architects; platform engineers; SREs; Kubernetes operators; identity specialists.

Artificial Intelligence

ML engineers, applied AI scientists, LLM platform engineers, AI governance leads, and heads of AI.

Software & Data

Senior engineers, engineering managers, data platform leads, and staff-level ICs.

How we engage

Three models. Pick the fit.

01Direct hire
+
Permanent placement with a guarantee period. Appropriate for senior and leadership hires where long-tenure alignment matters most. Fee is structured per placement, not per touchpoint.
02Contract
+
W-2 or 1099 contractors for defined-duration work. Useful for project ramp-ups, parental-leave coverage, or specialized skill sets you don't need permanently. Weekly or monthly billing.
03Contract-to-hire
+
Trial structure with a defined conversion path. The most common structure for senior IC roles — both parties confirm fit before a permanent commitment.
Representative sectors

Where we place. One operating standard.

Healthcare Government AI Start-ups Technology Manufacturing Transportation Medical Devices Education
Open roles

Currently hiring for our clients.

A cross-section of active searches. Each one is a direct placement at a Colossus client — staffing leadership at growth-stage platforms, cleared programs, and security-critical infrastructure teams.

See all 12 openings

Director of AI (FDE)

Featured
Bay Area Hybrid $250K – $300K

Forward-deployed engineering leadership role at a high-growth AI platform. Shapes how AI systems move from pilot to production, partnering directly with the client's most strategic enterprise accounts.

Apply on LinkedIn

Principal Security Engineer, AI Systems

Featured
Boston Hybrid $225K – $275K

Senior security role focused on the control plane and observability layer of production AI systems. For practitioners who want to shape how AI security is done, not just write policies about it.

Apply on LinkedIn

Front End Developer — TS/SCI Full Scope Polygraph

Cleared
DC / Baltimore On-site $190K – $240K

Active TS/SCI with full scope polygraph required. Front-end engineering work on a federal program where interface design and user experience materially affect mission outcomes.

Apply on LinkedIn

Senior DevSecOps / Infrastructure Security Engineer

Featured
Remote (US) $200K – $250K

Infrastructure security role at the CI/CD and cloud platform layer. Build the paved road, not gatekeep access to it. Strong fit for engineers who've run security as code and want to do it for a platform team that can actually ship.

Apply on LinkedIn

Senior Platform Engineer — Pulumi / GCP

Featured
Remote (US) $170K – $230K 6 benefits

Platform engineering at a client running modern infrastructure on GCP with Pulumi. For engineers who've graduated beyond ticket-driven work and want to own a platform end-to-end — the IaC, the developer experience, the reliability story.

Apply on LinkedIn

Hiring? Job searching? Start here.

We'll respond within two business days.