Coastal Recruiting - Engineering Candidate Spotlight, March 29

HAPPY FRIDAY - Drafting this week’s Engineering Candidate Spotlight (brace yourselves for some A+ talent) from Coastal’s inaugural team offsite in Mission Beach, San Diego. I’m personally such a proponent of a remote-first work culture but damn, it feels good to come together as a team and jam for a few days.

Before reviewing the all-star profiles below, we wanted to highlight a testimonial from the Co-Founder/CTO of rabbit, one of the hottest AI companies in the space. Rabbit is building r1 - your handheld pocket AI companion powered by their Large Action Model (LAM) - which has sold out pre-orders of their devices multiple times. 

We’ve been helping build rabbit’s team across the stack - and have had a blast doing so. Check out what their Co-Founder/CTO has to say:

“Coastal Recruiting sourced some of the most impressive engineers from various backgrounds for us in a very short time, and provided great support in helping us to hire them. We are proud to be partnering with them”

Peiyuan Liao, Co-Founder/CTO

Without further ado, peep the profiles below!

Founding Engineer (Full/Stack)

• Hands down, one of the most versatile engineers we’ve worked with; previously founded and sold his own tech company - currently at a company - Alumni - that was acquired by JP Morgan where he’s managing teams 

• Hacking, going 0-1 is in his DNA and he’s itching to join a Seed/Series A team that has a clear vision, product and commercial strategy

• Strong across the stack, particularly in disturbed systems and scaling backends from hundreds to millions of users

Security Leader (Web3)

• Long-standing (35+ years) experience in the cybersecurity/blockchain security space; actively looking for a new role and opportunity

• Formerly running security at DCG (and their portfolio subsidiaries), actively advises web3 projects and DAO's on security posture (e.g. zed.run) and was early in several mining businesses. Advisor to 0XBeacon (works w/Sandeep from Polygon) 

• After spending 2 years advising various web3 projects on security, he’s ready to get his hands dirty and join a high-potential blockchain company as a senior security leader

Founding Engineering Lead (AI-preferred)

• Sr/Staff-level engineer who has a perfect mix of FAANG and 0-1 experience. Started as an engineer at Google then went to a Seed company (Ambrook) where he helped them scale.

• Led Verily’s Product/Data team (mostly BE-heavy work), 1st engineer hired at Ambrook (Seed VC backed startup) helped them scale backend and infra

• Magna Cum Laude from Columbia, BS - Computer Engineering - looking to join a Seed/Series A startup in NYC as a Sr Tech Lead

Security Leader (Fintech / Web3)

• Extensive executive-level Security experience in fintech (Visa, Clover, KOHO, etc) and Enterprise SaaS (was Head of Security for Zoom.. during the pandemic 😭)

• Joined Chargepoint as a Sr IC - prepping them for IPO in 24 months, helping them build a team (25 under him when he left) and got their regulatory compliance in order for IPO via SPAC

• Main motivation is impact; looking to join a Series A-stage company in SaaS or Fintech / crypto where he can build the security function / team from scratch, working for a leadership team that understands the importance of a robust security posture 

Founding Engineer (FE-leaning)

• This candidate currently leads FE Engineering at an a16z backed Series B Health-tech company. Was their 1st FE engineering hire, now leading a team and operating as a full-stack product engineer. 

• He’s contributed to key parts of the product, including leading development of core product features such as multi-channel rule-based collaborative order intake & management flows, user comments, and tags.

• He’s currently looking for a strong team to join as an early/founding engineer - ideally in the AI/ML space - where he can have expanded ownership and impact on the product.

As always, if you know anyone who is looking to build their team with rock-star engineers - feel free to forward them this newsletter or give us a shout if any of these profiles catch your eye! 

Cheers from San Diego:

Have a great weekend.

David