Engineering Executive Search in India & Global Markets
Hire the leader your next two years depend on.
Tell us the mandate. Talhive runs technology executive search for engineering leaders: we bring you leaders who have already done the job at your stage, and you pay nothing beyond the Search Activation Fee until we do.
1,200 senior hires closed for US, UK, European and APAC companies since 2016. 93% of them are still in seat a year later. If your leadership role has been open for months, the pool is not the problem, the search is.
Failed executive search on senior product and engineering roles usually traces back to the brief, not the market.
Whether you need to hire technology executives at the CTO or VP level, or run executive search for startups moving through their first engineering scale, the process and the assessment standard are unchanged.
The brief we build for VP Engineering and CTO searches goes deeper than a job description. We map the passive candidate pool, identify the ten to fifteen people who have done the specific job at the specific company stage you need, and reach them through direct outreach rather than job board applications. This sourcing methodology means the shortlist includes people who were not looking, which is where the best candidates almost always are.
The quality of a search is determined early. Start with the role, the context, and what a strong hire looks like at 12 months.
Your details are held in strict confidence and are not shared with third parties.
Received.
A senior team member will review your enquiry and respond directly.
Why leadership searches fail, in four places.
An open leadership role is a stalled roadmap, a stretched team and a competitor shipping first. Walk the four points below to see what each one is costing you, and what we do about it.
The brief describes the company you wish you were.
A mandate built from an org chart rather than the market produces a search that stalls in month three. The role as written cannot be filled at the compensation on offer, and nobody finds out until four candidates have declined.
We pressure test the brief in week one.
Mandate architecture tests the role, the success outcomes, the compensation reality and the decision process against live market evidence. You get a written Role Manifesto, and if the brief cannot be filled as written you hear it in week two, not month four.
Fix this on my mandate →Miss all four and the search restarts. Six to twelve weeks per cycle, and a wrong senior hire costs multiples of the salary once ramp, exit and lost roadmap are counted.
One operating system for the hires you cannot afford to get wrong.
Four pillars, run on every dedicated mandate, founder led at the points where judgment matters. The numbers below come from 1,200 closes, not agency averages.
Mandate architecture
We pressure test the role, the success outcomes, the compensation reality, the decision process and the non negotiables before a single message goes out. The brief is the search.
Passive market mapping
Who the right leaders are, why they would move, and the proposition that earns their attention. A senior network built over nine years, mapped against the firms that build what you build.
Evidence led assessment
Track record, motivation, operating style, scale fit, stakeholder maturity and retention risk, each written up before you meet anyone.
Close and integration
Offer strategy, references, counteroffer dynamics, notice period tracking and the first ninety days on the job.
Bring the brief. We will tell you what the market actually looks like for it, and whether we are the right partner.
Request a search review →We run leadership searches for US, UK, European and APAC companies.
Global since 2021, with native coverage across EST, CET, GMT and IST. Whether you are replacing a critical leader, opening your first India role or standing up a GCC, the search runs in your working hours and to your governance.
EST aligned leadership
Leadership hires that overlap four to six hours with a US East product org. Compensation benchmarked in USD equivalent terms so the offer holds against local counteroffers.
GMT and CET build outs
Leadership first sequencing for UK and European scale ups: anchor the leader, then build the layer beneath them. Full working day overlap with our delivery teams.
Same day cycle hiring
Delivery from Pune, Bengaluru and Ho Chi Minh City. Interview loops that close inside one business day rather than across a week.
Either way, we hire
Own entity, GCC or employer of record, the search is unchanged. We calibrate candidate expectations to the structure before the first conversation, not after the offer.
Talhive also runs STEM executive search for clients building technical leadership teams across science, engineering and AI disciplines, with the same dedicated mandate structure and milestone-based fees.
Four stages. Three invoices. You only pay for milestones you can see.
Every stage is gated by your sign off before the next begins, and the payment sits on the stage that earns it. A Search Activation Fee at kickoff, a milestone when you accept the shortlist, the balance after your candidate joins and completes 30 days. Miss a milestone and it is never billed.
Calibrate
- Mandate architecture and stakeholder alignment
- Success outcomes, compensation reality, decision process
- The brief validated, or a different brief recommended
Paid at kickoff
It reserves the delivery team and funds the architecture. You keep the written mandate and the market map even if you stop here.
Map and engage
- Companies mapped before first outreach
- Passive candidates approached with a real proposition
- Weekly written progress with market intelligence
Nothing billed here
The heaviest part of the search costs you nothing extra.
Assess and present
- Interview ready shortlist with written intelligence briefs
- Motivation interviews and reference signals before presentation
- Fit, risk, compensation and close probability aligned before offer
Paid on offer acceptance
Payable when the selected candidate accepts the offer.
Close and protect
- Offer strategy, references and counteroffer management
- Notice period tracking and joining confidence
- Check ins with the hire and hiring manager at 30, 60 and 90 days
Paid after 30 days in role
The balance falls due after the candidate joins and completes 30 days. A 90 day replacement guarantee runs from the start date.
Total fee is a percentage of the placed candidate's first year base, agreed in writing before the mandate opens. Every placement carries a 90 day replacement guarantee.
Get the fee in writing →The leaders we are talking to right now.
A sample of the senior pool Talhive works with, by scope, focus and public evidence of the work. As a technology executive search firm running executive search in India for global companies, the same standard applies to a VP Engineering executive search and to a first CTO hire. Full profiles and names go out once a mandate is agreed and the candidate consents.
The same applies when you need to hire a head of engineering: same brief architecture, same passive market mapping, same evidence-led assessment.
Chief technology officer · 20+ years
Technology leadership at an Indian fashion ecommerce platform after global technology and delivery businesses. A large Indian fashion marketplace, with prior experience at a global consumer technology company and an online grocery delivery platform.
Senior vice president of engineering · 20+ years
Engineering leadership across payments, banking technology, risk and infrastructure. An Indian payments and financial infrastructure company, following experience in global cloud and enterprise software businesses.
Chief technology officer, rapid delivery · 10 years
A CTO whose public engineering account describes an advertising system processing a billion events a day. An Indian rapid grocery delivery platform, where customer products, advertising and operational systems share a demanding delivery environment.
A senior network built over nine years of leadership search. Share a brief and we will send profiles matched to it, with scope and notice period, once the mandate is calibrated.
Comparable mandates, and what they cost in weeks.
Numbers from dedicated mandates, not aggregated agency averages. Full dossiers available on request under NDA.
VP Engineering closed in 32 days after four offer stage declines.
The earlier searches had identified viable candidates but never ran motivation interviews. All four dropoffs were equity concerns that had never been surfaced. We rebuilt the brief around what the market could clear and tested motivation before presentation.
Six senior closes in eleven weeks, all six still there at month eighteen.
NBA needed senior engineering talent in India for a strategic digital products build after earlier efforts failed on calibration. We rebuilt the brief, mapped target companies, approached passive talent and managed offer closure end to end.
Want the full dossier on a mandate like yours, including the target map, the assessment format and the timeline week by week?
What our clients say about us.
"Talhive has been an outstanding partner for NBA in helping us find top engineering talent in India. Their team has a deep understanding of our requirements and has consistently delivered high quality candidates while remaining extremely responsive throughout the recruitment process."
Numbers on this mandate were verified by NBA HR. The full dossier is available on request under NDA.
Across 270 clients. The B2B services benchmark is 31.
We will put you on a call with a client who hired the same profile you are hiring.
Ask for a reference →The other mandates we run alongside this one.
Executive search is one answer, not the only one. For volume hiring, a full India build or a practice specific mandate, another model is frequently the better bet.
For technology leadership recruitment below C-suite, including engineering managers and principal engineers, the engineering and AI hiring page covers the full assessment framework and gate criteria.
India team build
Building a technology team in India from zero. City selection, leadership first sequence, employer brand.
Explore →Embedded RPO
An embedded recruiter inside your team, owning pipeline and hiring operations end to end.
Explore →Engineering and AI hiring
The full engineering practice, assessment dimensions and gate criteria.
Explore →Product and design hiring
Product and design leadership for teams where the roadmap drives the engineering plan.
Explore →Not sure which model your mandate needs? That is the first thing calibration answers, before you pay anything beyond the Search Activation Fee. Test the assumption →
The five questions every buyer asks us.
Answered plainly, including the commercial ones. If your question is not here, a senior team member will answer it inside one business day.
Engineering leadership hiring in India: from Head of Engineering to CTO
Talhive operates as a specialist executive search firm India, and an placing senior engineering leaders across the full leadership stack. Our CTO recruitment India practice covers founding and scaling CTOs at Series A through growth-stage companies. For VP Engineering search India and Director-level search, we run structured processes with reference architectures rather than CV shortlists. Every mandate in our engineering leadership hiring India portfolio is run on dedicated search with milestone-based fees: you pay when milestones are met, not on effort.
Bring the brief. We will tell you what the market actually looks like.
Every conversation starts with the mandate, not a pitch. Share the role, the context and the timeline. Inside one business day you get a view on the market, the compensation reality, and whether we are the right partner.
Or reach us directly at search@talhive.com · answered within one business day across IST, GMT, CET and EST
The quality of a search is determined early. Start with the role, the context, and what a strong hire looks like at 12 months.
Your details are held in strict confidence and are not shared with third parties.
Received.
A senior team member will review your enquiry and respond directly.