One day to the first candidate. Eragon signed on April 9. Its own AI agent handled the DocuSign. Contrario onboarded the team and connected to Ashby on April 10, and the first candidates arrived the next day. Fifteen came in the first week.

Calibrating to Dave's bar. Dave handed over the judgment call. "I'll trust your judgment on who would exceed a certain bar," he said. Contrario collected salary expectations upfront, then tightened the filter with every rejection reason Dave posted in Slack: not enough startup experience, too senior, a scattered background. Weekly check-ins of 10 to 15 minutes kept everyone calibrated.

Fitting the way Eragon works. Contrario changed its process to match the team. Intros went out as direct emails, with Dave and Eragon's scheduling agent cc'd. The intro pitch was reworked, and candidates who missed a call got a follow-up.

A wide net with a tight filter. 63 recruiters worked the Member of Technical Staff role and submitted 273 candidates. 108 passed Contrario's review and went to Eragon. Eragon approved 20 for interviews, and 3 were hired. Daniel Sherman placed Hyun Ki (Matthew) Cho, Dino Alabre placed Jonathan Jiang, and Carrie Richardson placed Xin Xu, for whom Eragon was the clear first choice. Jonathan went from submission to placement in 42 days.