The best AI engineers aren't on Upwork. They're employed at startups, working on interesting problems — and quietly open to something better. Underdog.io delivers pre-screened, full-time AI engineers with production LLM, ML, and applied AI experience directly to your inbox every Monday. No agencies. No freelancers. No retainer.
Why hiring AI engineers is broken
AI engineering is the most talent-constrained specialty in software right now. The engineers you actually want — with production LLM experience, real ML systems in market, and the ability to own an AI stack end-to-end — are already employed. They're not on Upwork. They're not responding to InMails. You need a different approach.
Top AI engineers aren't browsing job boards. They're shipping AI features in production. If they're applying to your posting, ask yourself why they have time to do that.
Upwork and Toptal deliver contractors. You need someone who will own your AI stack long-term — building institutional knowledge, mentoring your team, and shipping with you for years.
The average AI engineering role takes 52+ days to fill. Every week you're without the right hire is a week your AI roadmap stalls. Speed to quality interview matters more here than anywhere else.
Underdog solves all three. We surface AI engineers who are quietly open — employed, building in production, but open to the right opportunity. You get a curated shortlist. Every candidate is full-time-seeking, US-based, and pre-vetted. You only pay when you hire.
AI specializations in the network
Tell us what you're building and what stack you're running on. We filter the network to match your specific requirements — not just "AI engineer" as a catch-all.
RAG pipelines, agent orchestration, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, LLM evaluation. Engineers who've shipped LLM-powered products to real users — not just prototypes.
Production ML systems, model training and deployment, feature engineering, A/B experimentation. PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face. Engineers who close the gap between research and product.
Training pipelines, model serving, evaluation frameworks, vector databases, observability. AWS, GCP, Kubernetes. The engineers who make sure your AI actually works in production.
Deep technical roles in natural language processing, computer vision, and multimodal systems. The highest-compensated AI engineering specializations — and the hardest to find through traditional channels.
Your first or second AI hire. High equity, high ownership, high pace. Engineers who can own the AI architecture, make the foundational decisions, and build the team around them.
Technical direction, architecture ownership, team-building, and hands-on shipping. Series B and C companies scaling their AI teams need this profile — and it's the rarest one in the market.
Hiring guide
You're competing with Big Tech for the same candidates. Here's what the research shows — and what the best-hiring startups actually do differently.
How it works
No sourcing sprints. No LinkedIn InMail campaigns. No agency calls. A curated shortlist of pre-vetted AI engineers — matched to your stack — delivered every week.
Share your stack, the AI problem you're solving, seniority, and location preference. Takes 15 minutes. We use it to filter — not just match by keyword.
Every Monday, we introduce you to AI engineers who match your criteria. Hand-reviewed. Actively exploring. Full-time seeking. Already know about your company before the first message.
Request interviews directly through the platform. No middleman markup. No exclusivity. You pay 11.5% only when you hire — and only if you hire.
How we compare
Every option for hiring an AI engineer has a real trade-off. Here's an honest comparison for a startup making a full-time hire.
Compensation & pricing
Traditional agencies charge 20–25% of first-year salary. For a $180K senior AI engineer, that's $36–45K. Underdog charges 11.5% — pay-per-hire, no retainer, no risk.
Salary ranges reflect base at venture-backed startups. Equity is additive. Sources: Glassdoor, Acceler8 Talent, Interview Query 2025.
Companies in the network
Every company has been reviewed and approved. No staffing firms. No agencies. Just real teams building real AI products — and hiring engineers to help them do it.
Not every company is actively hiring AI engineers at all times. We match you based on what's open when you join the network.
Common questions
Ready to hire
Pre-vetted. Full-time seeking. Introduced directly to you — no agency, no retainer, no offshore contractors. First batch in your inbox within one week.
Start hiring AI engineers →