You do not have to speak the stack to hire the right technical person.

Affinity Search Partners is a recruiting firm in Brentwood, Tennessee. We work with owners and operators who need an engineer, an analyst or a technology leader and cannot judge the candidates themselves. Tell us what the business needs. We turn that into a role, find the people who can do it, and bring you a short list worth your time.

Talk about a role

The kinds of people we place

Technical job titles hide what the work is for. Here are the three families of roles we fill, described by what the person does for your business rather than by the tools they use.

We also place the leaders of these teams, from a first IT manager at a growing company to a technology executive. If a role sits outside what we do well, we will tell you that at the first conversation rather than after a slow search.

How a search runs

The same steps every time, whether the role is a contractor for one project or a permanent head of technology.

  1. We sit down with you and work out what the business needs from this role, in your words, and agree what a good hire looks like before anyone is contacted.

  2. We write that up as a profile a technical candidate will recognize, and read it back to you so nothing was lost in translation.

  3. We go looking, starting with people we already know and moving out to people who are doing good work and are not reading job boards.

  4. We screen every candidate the same way: skills, motivation, whether the pay lines up, and what references say about how they handle a hard stretch.

  5. You meet a short list, and after each interview you hear from us quickly so the good candidates are not lost to a slow decision.

  6. We help shape the offer, plan for a counter-offer from their current employer, and check in with both of you after the start date.

Three ways to bring someone in

Recruiters use these terms as if everyone knows them. Here is what each one means for an owner, and when it tends to fit.

Contract

A contractor or consultant joins for a defined piece of work or a busy stretch. You pay for the time, and when the work ends the arrangement ends with it. The person is not on your payroll.

Tends to fit: a project with a finish line, a gap while someone is out, or a skill you need once and will not need again.

Contract-to-hire

The person starts as a contractor. After a working period, you and they decide together whether to make it a permanent job. Both sides get to see the fit in practice before committing.

Tends to fit: a role that is new to the company and still taking shape, or a hire you want to watch in the seat before adding a salary line.

Permanent

A direct hire onto your payroll from the first day, with the benefits and expectations of any other employee. This is the route for the roles the business is built around.

Tends to fit: the person who will own a system, lead a team, or be the one you call when the technology has to work.

Not sure which one you need? That is a normal place to start. It is usually the first thing we talk through, and the answer is sometimes different from the one you came in with.

Where we work

Home in Middle Tennessee

Founded in 2013 and based in Brentwood, Tennessee, we know the Nashville area's employers and the people who work for them. Much of our work is close to home, with companies whose main business is something other than software.

  • Healthcare and the organizations that support it
  • Manufacturing and distribution
  • Financial services
  • Technology companies of every size

Reach across the country

Technical people do not all live where the job is, and many of the roles we fill no longer need them to. We run searches for employers elsewhere in the United States and for positions that will be worked remotely, using the same steps and the same standard for who makes the short list.

Relationships are how we work. We would rather know a company well and place a few people there over the years than fill seats we never hear about again.

Bring us the business problem. We will do the translating.

You do not need a job description, a list of technologies or a salary figure to start. A conversation about what the company is trying to do is enough, and there is no obligation on either side.