DoD SkillBridge: A Founder's Guide to Hiring Transitioning Service Members
SkillBridge lets you work with a transitioning service member for up to 180 days while the military keeps paying them. Here is how the program works, whether your company qualifies, and how to apply.
How Defense Tech Startups Actually Hire Cleared Engineers
Defense tech funding hit records in 2026 and every startup wants cleared engineers. Here is who you are really competing with, where the pool is, and what wins a cleared candidate when you cannot outbid Anduril.
Continuous Vetting: What It Actually Means When You Hire Cleared Engineers
Continuous vetting replaced periodic reinvestigations for millions of cleared workers. Here is what it monitors, what happens when an alert fires on your new hire, and how it changes a cleared search.
When You Need a Confidential Search: Executive and Founding Hires Off the Radar
Some searches cannot be posted: replacing a seated executive, courting an employed leader, hiring for a stealth startup, or landing a founding engineer. Here is how a confidential search actually works.
Simplify Your Interview Process: The 4-Step Framework That Actually Works
Cheri Kruger's 4-step interview framework for engineering hires: one owner and one decision per step, why more than four rounds signals broken internal trust, and how bloated loops lose your best candidates.
Volume vs. Quality: What 1,500 Placements Taught Me About Hiring Right
Cheri Kruger on why resume volume is a vanity metric, why a low submittal-to-hire ratio is the real signal of recruiting quality, and what 1,500 placements taught her about candidate quality.
Hiring Veteran Engineers with Security Clearance: A Founder's Guide
A founder's guide to hiring veteran software engineers with security clearances: why they are undervalued, where to find them, and how to write reqs and interview loops that do not screen them out.
Inside a Placement Story: How Passive Candidate Sourcing Fills Roles Everyone Else Gives Up On
A real placement story: a Solutions Engineer role sat open for nearly two years until a years-long relationship with a passive candidate closed it. What that means for your hardest search.
Why I Went Boutique: What a Solo Recruiter Can Do That a Big Agency Can't
Kruger Recruiting founder Cheri Kruger on leaving agency recruiting to go solo, why a boutique recruiter for startups moves faster than a big agency, and how to choose between them.
The Engineer Hiring Mistakes That Cost You the Best Candidates
Cheri Kruger on the two mistakes that quietly cost companies their best engineering candidates: hiring for pedigree over potential, and interview loops with more than four steps.
Why New Hires Fail in the First 90 Days (And How the Best Companies Prevent It)
The real reasons new hires fail in their first 90 days, what the cost of a bad hire actually is, and what the best companies do differently, from 15 years of technical recruiting.
Hiring cleared software engineers: clearance levels, timelines, and how to recruit cleared talent
A practical guide to hiring engineers with US security clearances: what the clearance levels mean, how long the process takes, why cleared searches are slower, and how to recruit from a fixed talent pool.
What you actually pay
How tech recruiter fees actually work: contingency vs retained, and what you'll pay
A plain-language guide to recruiter fees: contingency vs retained vs engaged search, what percentage you pay and when, how guarantees work, and how to tell if a fee is worth it.
Hiring for AI
How to hire AI and ML engineers: roles, signals, and compensation in 2026
AI engineer, ML engineer, research scientist, or data scientist? A practical guide to which AI role you actually need, what strong candidates look like, what they cost, and why these searches stall.
Nearshore software development: a hiring guide to Latin American engineering talent
Why US companies hire software engineers in Latin America, how to choose between contractor, EOR, and entity models, what it costs, and how to vet talent. A practical nearshore hiring guide.
What is a founding engineer? Role, equity, salary, and how to hire one
What a founding engineer actually is, how the role differs from a senior engineer or a CTO, how much equity and salary to offer, and how to hire your first one. A guide for early-stage founders.
How to write a job description that great engineers actually read
Most job descriptions filter out the candidates you most want to hire. A practical guide to writing a JD that pulls strong engineers in instead of pushing them away.
Why strong engineers do not apply to your roles, and how to actually reach them
The best engineering candidates almost never come through job boards. A working playbook for sourcing, outreach, and the candidate experience that follows.
Five signals it is time to look for a new engineering role
How to tell the difference between a normal rough patch at work and a real signal that you have outgrown your current role. A practical guide for senior engineers.
Hiring across borders
Hiring engineers in LATAM in 2026: a practical playbook
After hundreds of placements across LATAM, the patterns that separate teams that scale from teams that quietly fall apart. A working guide for hiring engineers in 2026.