Specialist recruitment · AI · Cyber security · Product & Engineering · Technical sales

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building the future.

Progress Lane is a specialist recruitment firm for the people building technology companies. We work only in AI, cyber security, software, product, engineering, technical sales and technology leadership, and we run those searches internationally.

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United Kingdom · Europe · Middle East · North America

For employers

Find exceptional technical and commercial talent.

Partner-led search across engineering, security, AI and revenue teams, mapped against the market rather than a database.

Hire Exceptional Talent For candidates

Find your next move with the companies shaping what comes next.

Confidential, specialist representation from people who understand the work you actually do, wherever in the world you want to do it.

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01About us

A boutique practice, built around people.

We are a partner-led practice, not a volume agency. We work with a small number of teams at any time, only in AI, cyber security, product & engineering, and technical sales, so every search gets a senior eye from the first call.

We would rather be the firm three teams call every year than the one a hundred teams call once. So we give honest advice when a role is not right, keep fees transparent, and put a written guarantee behind every permanent placement.

Specialist, not generalist

Four practices only: AI, cyber security, product & engineering, and technical sales. We turn down mandates outside them.

Technical partners

Every search is run by a partner who has worked with these teams for years and can hold a real technical conversation before a CV is ever sent.

Small book, by design

We take on a limited number of mandates each quarter so every client gets partner attention rather than a delivery queue.

Global by default

Searches run across the US, UK, EU and Middle East, including fully remote mandates, with compliant contract engagement in every major jurisdiction.

02Why Progress Lane

Specialist by design. International by reach.

Conventional agencies cover every sector and know none of them well. We chose the opposite: a narrow set of technology disciplines, understood properly, searched globally.

Deep technical understanding

Briefs are scoped by people who can hold a real conversation about model training, detection engineering, distributed systems or enterprise sales cycles before a CV is ever sent.

Specialist candidate networks

Relationships built over years inside a narrow set of disciplines, not a database bought at scale. Most of the people we place were not applying anywhere.

AI and cyber security depth

Two of the hardest markets to hire in, covered as core practices rather than an added line on a services page.

Senior and leadership search

From staff and principal individual contributors through to CTO, CISO and VP-level appointments, run as confidential search.

International search capability

Mandates across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and North America, with compliant permanent and contract engagement in each.

Technical and commercial coverage

The engineers who build the product and the revenue teams who take it to market, briefed by the same practice.

03Practices

Four practices. Nothing outside them.

Permanent, contract and interim engagement across each practice, at individual contributor, senior and leadership level. Technology leadership search runs across all four rather than beside them.

Technology leadership search

CTO, VP Engineering, CISO, Head of AI and revenue leadership appointments, run confidentially across all four practices rather than as a separate market.

Leadership search

NDA-first

Mutual NDA and terms signed before any name, brief or salary band is shared - both directions.

Partner-led

One partner owns your search end to end. No handoffs to a delivery desk you never met.

Three roles at a time

Candidates see a curated shortlist, not a mass mail-out. Clients get 3-5 briefed profiles.

12-month guarantee

Permanent placements carry a 12-month replacement guarantee, written into our terms.

04Opportunities

Growth-stage AI infrastructure (client name withheld under NDA)Representative

SalesAEAI

San Francisco / Remote

Full-time

$220-300k OTE

Apply

Showing 11 of 11Join Our Talent Network

05For candidates

Career moves, handled with care.

Whether you're a research scientist weighing a lab move, a security lead ready for a bigger mandate, or a staff engineer hunting for real ownership - we work with you for years, not weeks, and we operate everywhere our clients do.

See open roles

Confidentiality: NDA before any client is named. Never approached at your current employer.
Cost to you: Nothing, ever. Candidates are never charged a fee.

Introduce yourself
Step 01
Share your CV or profile. Two-way NDA before we discuss any client.
Calibration call
Step 02
A 45-minute session with a partner to map ambitions, constraints and comp.
Curated shortlist
Step 03
You see three roles at a time - briefed thoroughly, ranked to your priorities.
Offer & landing
Step 04
We negotiate on your behalf and stay close through your first 90 days.

06For companies

Hires that stick, handled end-to-end.

We partner with a small number of AI, cyber security and Product & Engineering teams each quarter - from Series A scale-ups to global enterprises. Every mandate is led by a partner with a technical background and a personal network in the field.

See engagement models

Shortlist in: 10-14 days for most permanent mandates; 72 hours for critical contract cover.
Guarantee: 12-month replacement guarantee on permanent placements.

Discovery & scoping
Step 01
A partner-led session to pressure-test the brief, map the market and agree success criteria before we start.
NDA & terms signed
Step 02
A mutual NDA and our terms of business are signed up front - before any candidate names, salary bands or confidential briefs change hands.
Targeted market map
Step 03
A confidential long-list from our AI, cyber and Product & Engineering networks - benchmarked on skills, comp and motivation.
Curated shortlist
Step 04
3–5 pre-qualified candidates with structured notes, references on request and a clear rationale for every inclusion.
Offer & onboarding
Step 05
We manage negotiations, counter-offers and notice periods, then stay close through the first 90 days on the job.

"Progress Lane placed our head of security, four research hires and a principal platform engineer inside a year - across three countries. Every one is still with us."

Client name withheld under NDA

CTO, global AI & security platform

Company and individual name withheld under NDA. Full attribution and references are available to prospective clients on request.

07Engagements

Permanent and contract, across three niches.

Whether you're building a founding team, scaling a platform, or plugging a critical gap - we deliver the same specialist bench in whichever engagement model fits, worldwide.

PermanentGlobal

Permanent search

Retained and exclusive search for full-time hires - from senior individual contributors to C-suite.

Retained, exclusive or contingent models
Typical time-to-shortlist: 10–14 days
12-month replacement guarantee
Salary benchmarking + offer strategy included

ContractGlobal

Contract & interim

Vetted contractors and fractional leaders - deployed in days, compliant across every major jurisdiction.

Day-rate, fixed-term and statement-of-work
Global payroll, IR35, AOR & EOR handled end-to-end
Shortlist inside 72 hours for critical roles
Extend, convert to permanent, or rotate seamlessly

Our niches

Permanent · Contract · Interim

Artificial Intelligence

Research Scientists
ML / MLOps Engineers
Applied AI Leaders
Data & Foundation-Model Teams

Cyber Security

Offensive Security / Red Team
Detection & Response
AppSec & Cloud Security
CISO & Security Leadership

Product & Engineering

Staff & Principal Engineers
Cloud / Platform / SRE
Embedded, Systems & Robotics
VP Product & Engineering / CTO

08Meet the partners

You work with the person running the search.

Every mandate is owned end to end by a partner. No handover to a delivery desk, no researcher relaying answers, no account manager between you and the market.

Featured client Cyber Tech Guardians logo

Partner-led throughout

The person who scopes the brief is the person who works the market and manages the offer.

One conversation, one owner

Candidates and hiring teams speak to the same partner from first contact to start date.

Deliberately small

We take on fewer searches than we could so that each one gets genuine attention.

09Track record

Evidence, once it is ours to share.

Most of our work sits under NDA. Rather than publish claims we cannot stand behind, we hold this space for client references, named case studies and placement data as each becomes cleared for publication. Full references are available to prospective clients on request.

Clients

Selected searches

Cyber security

Security leadership

United Kingdom

The brief: Awaiting client sign-off
The search: Awaiting client sign-off
The outcome: Awaiting client sign-off

Artificial intelligence

Research and ML engineering

Europe

The brief: Awaiting client sign-off
The search: Awaiting client sign-off
The outcome: Awaiting client sign-off

Technical sales

Revenue leadership

North America

The brief: Awaiting client sign-off
The search: Awaiting client sign-off
The outcome: Awaiting client sign-off

Seniority recruited: Senior IC to executive
Engagement: Permanent, contract, interim
Regions covered: UK, Europe, Middle East, North America

10Cyber security services

Protection, not just people.

Alongside cyber security hiring, we also deliver cyber security as a service through Cyber Tech Guardians, a cyber security company we work closely with. From strategic advisory to managed detection and response, we help teams build defences while they scale.

Visit Cyber Tech Guardians

Partner

Cyber Tech Guardians

Advisory & vCISO
Managed detection & response
Offensive security & red team
Cloud & application security
Compliance, GRC & audit prep

11Sales practice

Sales talent for technical companies.

We also place the revenue teams that take frontier technology to market - from first BDRs to global sales leadership, across SaaS, AI, cyber security and Product & Engineering.

View sales roles

BDRs

Business Development Reps

Top-of-funnel hunters who open enterprise technical accounts.

ISRs

Inside Sales Reps

Mid-market closers who understand complex SaaS and platform sales cycles.

BDMs

Business Development Managers

Strategic account expansion, partner-led growth and new-market entry.

AMs

Account Managers

Retention, expansion and long-term customer success for technical products.

SEs

Sales Engineers

Technical pre-sales for AI, cyber security and Product & Engineering platforms.

Leadership

Sales Directors & VPs

Revenue leaders who can scale teams from first revenue to $50M+ ARR.

12Method

A search process engineered like software.

Phase 01

Calibration

We meet the founders, the hiring managers, and - where relevant - the team. Success is defined before search begins.

Phase 02

Mapping

A structured sweep of the market. Every plausible candidate identified, ranked and prioritised.

Phase 03

Engagement

Warm, personal outreach. We represent the opportunity in the language of the researcher, engineer or operator we're speaking to.

Phase 04

Landing

Offer strategy, negotiation, references, onboarding. We stay close through the first 90 days.

13Questions

Things worth asking.

Four, deeply: AI (research, ML engineering, applied AI), cyber security (offensive, defensive, platform, GRC), Product & Engineering (staff/principal ICs and leadership across cloud, systems, embedded and robotics), and technical sales (BDRs, ISRs, BDMs, account managers, sales engineers, sales directors and VPs).

Internationally. Partners are based across the US, UK, EU and Middle East, and we run searches in every major tech hub - plus fully remote mandates worldwide.

Both, depending on the engagement. We operate as a recruitment consultancy: retained search for named partner-led mandates; contingent placement for well-scoped IC roles; embedded talent for scaling teams.

Fees are capped at a maximum of 40% of first-year cash compensation, and typically land well below that depending on role, seniority and engagement model. Permanent search fees are structured across three milestones; contract engagements are a transparent day-rate margin. Candidates are never charged.

Every candidate conversation is under NDA before company names are shared. We never approach your current employer without written consent.

First shortlist within 14 days. Offer accepted within 8–12 weeks for most roles. Executive searches typically 12–16 weeks.

14Get in touch

Ready to make the move?

Tell us a little about yourself - or your team - and a partner will be in touch within one working day.

Emailinfo@theprogresslanegroup.com

Werecruitthepeoplebuilding the future.