For code where undefined behaviour has nowhere to hide
Hire C/C++ Developers
C++ gives an engineer enough control to be genuinely fast and enough room to get memory management genuinely wrong, sometimes in ways that only surface in a release build months later. These engineers are tested on exactly that risk, then placed inside the performance-critical code your systems actually depend on.
- Profiles typically within two business days
- Replacement Assurance: If an engineer is not the right fit, a replacement from our own team starts within ten business days of your request, at no extra cost
- You interview before placement if you want to
- At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast
- 14-Day Risk-Free Trial: For your first engineer on a time-and-materials engagement. Up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for trial hours. Continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop
How we evaluate a C++ engineer
The tasks, the signals and the onboarding, walked through by the people who run them.
90 secSample frame · video pending01Published, not promised
The assessment behind every engineer we send.
The C++ bar is published, not assumed: five competencies, the exact task behind each, and the shortcut that ends a candidacy. Most interviews ask about standard trivia. This one asks whether the memory management is actually correct.
What we listen forWhether they design ownership deliberately, not sprinkle smart pointers everywhere.
A codebase has manual new and delete calls causing intermittent memory leaks. Propose your approach.
- What strong sounds like
- Proposes RAII-based ownership with the appropriate smart pointer for each case, explaining the ownership model rather than applying one pointer type universally.
- What gives us pause
- Replaces every raw pointer with shared_ptr uniformly, without considering whether unique ownership would be more correct.
C++17/20/23 · CMake · STL
Embedded · RTOS · POSIX
GoogleTest · Sanitizers · Valgrind
Clang-Tidy · Conan · GDB
02Who you actually meet
The bench, priced by seniority.
Three seniority tiers, priced honestly, and the engineers who fill each one today. Real names and photos take their place as soon as we can share them, and the standard stays exactly the same.
Engineer
Features scoped tightly enough to ship inside your review bar, every time.
The right first hire when your seniors already set the standard.
$2,800–3,600per month
Senior
The hard module nobody else wants to own, taken end to end.
Ownership of a surface, without adding a manager to your headcount.
$3,900–4,900per month
Lead
The workstream's decisions, made daily, so nothing waits on a meeting.
One accountable voice for a pod or initiative that can't afford to drift.
$5,200–6,500per month
C++ engineer
3 yrs · US East overlap
Traced a release-only crash to undefined behaviour a debug build never surfaced
- C++17
- GoogleTest
- GDB
Senior C++ engineer
8 yrs · UK + EU hours
Redesigned a memory-leaking ownership model, ending months of intermittent crashes
- C++20
- RAII
- Sanitizers
Lead C++ engineer
11 yrs · EU + US split
Fit a firmware update into a fraction of the previous memory budget without cutting features
- Architecture
- Embedded
- RTOS
- Valgrind
Indicative ranges, representative profiles. Exact figures and named engineers arrive with your shortlist.
Weighing this against a freelancer, a direct hire or a marketplace? See the honest comparison
03From stated problem to first change
Four steps, each closing on evidence.
This process tests ownership and performance judgement, not standard-library trivia. You owe nothing if you stop along the way.
Define the memory problem
We map where your codebase's memory safety or performance is actually under strain. The brief names that gap, not a list of C++ standards to know.
A brief your leads signMatch against your codebase
Candidates are screened against your actual constraints, your build system and your review culture. Three engineers who understand your codebase beat thirty who list C++ on a CV.
Three fits, not thirty CVsAssess on the real tasks
Your team can watch the ownership-design and undefined-behaviour exercises directly. What shows up is memory-safety judgement, not familiarity with the newest standard.
Evaluation you can watchOnboard inside your process
Access, standards and a first bounded change to real production code. Continuity cover keeps a departure from ever becoming your emergency.
A merged change in week one
04Evidence and proof
Engineers who made undefined behaviour impossible to hide.
C++ proof is a memory bug caught by tooling before release, not one found by a customer. Every record here waits for written client approval before production.
Explore case studies
A release-only crash traced to undefined behaviour a debug build never showed.
Aster North's data-processing engine crashed only in production release builds, never in debug. An embedded C++ engineer ran the sanitizer suite and traced it to undefined behaviour that optimisation had exposed, fixing it within the sprint.
- Release-only crashes
- Eliminated
- Time to root cause
- Under one week
He redesigned our ownership model and the memory leaks that had plagued us for months simply stopped.
Sample · pending client approval
The firmware fit in the reduced memory budget without cutting a single feature we needed.
Sample · pending client approval
05Three shapes, one standard
Add an engineer, a systems pod, or a practice.
Most teams start with one engineer working inside performance-critical code that already exists. Some need a pod that owns a whole component end to end. Where a system needs building from scratch rather than one role filled, we point you to the practice instead.
- Team extension
One named engineer
A single C++ specialist inside your direction and your reviews. The smallest commitment, and the usual first step.
- Delivery pods
A systems pod
A pod with its own lead that owns a performance-critical component end to end, memory model included. You set priorities while the pod carries delivery.
- Software architecture
The practice, not the person
Where a system needs building from scratch rather than one role filled, software architecture takes that scope on instead.
06Straight answers
Asked before a C++ hire is signed.
01What does a C++ engineer actually do day to day?
Designs RAII-based ownership deliberately, hunts undefined behaviour with sanitizers before it reaches a release build, and measures resource use instead of assuming it. The unglamorous majority of the work is scrutiny no compiler flag can substitute for.
02Do you hire for embedded or application-level C++ specifically?
Matched to where your code actually runs. Memory-safety and performance judgement transfers across both, then the evaluation confirms familiarity with your specific constraints.
03Can we run our own interviews as well?
Yes, the published tasks are built to be reused directly. Several clients now run the undefined-behaviour exercise themselves in later hiring rounds.
04How fast can a C++ engineer start?
A shortlist arrives within days from a bench evaluated continuously. From there, your own repository and build-environment access process sets the real timeline.
05Who manages the engineer day to day?
Your leads set priorities and hold the review bar. We take on the employment side of it instead: continuity, payroll, replacement risk and the handoff when plans change.
06What if the engineer is not the right fit?
Notice it early and tell us; the replacement won't cost you anything. The next engineer is briefed on the specific gap, which keeps a second miss uncommon.
07Do your C++ developers use AI coding tools?
Yes, openly. AI drafts boilerplate and test scaffolding quickly; the engineer stays accountable for every ownership decision, memory-safety fix and merge that reaches your codebase.
08How does pricing work for a hired C++ engineer?
The tier bands above hold for this specialism; the shortlist carries the confirmed figure once scope is set. Monthly billing, no placement fee, notice-period exit only.