How We Vet
How we evaluate engineers before they reach your team
Not a resume pass. Not an algorithm test. Not volume staffing.
We screen for the things that usually get missed: technical judgment, communication, and the ability to work inside an existing team. By the time you meet someone, the signal should be clear.
Why surface-level screening breaks down
Most staffing firms use the same process for every engineer: review the resume, run a generic screen, send the profile. That is enough to move candidates through a funnel. It is not enough to tell whether someone can step into a real product team and contribute without creating more review and management work.
For software, data, and DevOps roles, the failure points are usually practical. Can this person reason through messy problems? Can they explain tradeoffs clearly? Can they work inside a codebase, process, and team they did not design themselves?
That is what the process is built around. The screen changes by role, and the bar is tied to the environment the engineer will actually step into.
Five things we check
The goal is to understand how someone will operate on the job, not just whether they can pass a narrow test.
Technical depth
Domain-specific expertise for the role: system design, infrastructure architecture, data modeling, or application development. Assessments are tailored to the stack and environment, not a generic algorithm exercise.
Communication clarity
Spoken English fluency, written clarity, and the ability to explain technical decisions during standups, code reviews, and planning discussions. Engineers who embed need to communicate well, not just code well.
Problem-solving approach
How engineers reason through ambiguous problems, make trade-off decisions, and debug unfamiliar systems. Product teams hand engineers real constraints and expect sound judgment.
Security awareness
For teams in data-heavy, regulated, or security-sensitive environments: practical awareness of secure coding practices, data handling norms, and compliance constraints.
Team and culture fit
Whether an engineer can follow existing conventions, adapt to established workflows, participate in code reviews, and work well inside your team's communication style and operating norms.
How the process works
The steps are straightforward. The point is to gather enough signal before an introduction happens.
Role scoping
We start with the real role: stack, seniority, workflow, product context, and any security or compliance constraints. That shapes the rest of the screen.
Technical evaluation
Candidates work through role-specific scenarios: architecture discussion, code review, implementation, or systems questions. We care more about judgment than trivia.
Communication and fit
We look at English fluency, written clarity, and how clearly someone explains decisions. We also look for autonomy and experience working inside structured product teams.
Introduction with context
When someone reaches you, we share the key context: strengths, risks, relevant experience, and why we think the match makes sense.
What you should know before an intro
You should not be starting from zero once a candidate reaches your calendar.
- Technical depth mapped to your role
- A practical read on how the engineer lines up with your stack, domain, and product environment. Not a list of keywords.
- Verified communication quality
- Spoken English, written clarity, and evidence that they can handle the kinds of technical conversations your team actually has.
- Relevant environment experience
- Product complexity, workflow, and any prior experience in regulated or security-sensitive systems that actually matches your context.
- Realistic integration timeline
- A realistic sense of how quickly the engineer can start contributing given the role, onboarding, and team environment.
If you still need to do a deep first-pass screen yourself, we did not do our job.
Why this is different from a resume pass
Most staffing models optimize for speed or volume. This one is built to reduce bad introductions.
Against resume screening
A resume tells you what someone claims. Silicon Development assesses what they can actually do: role-specific technical work, live problem-solving, and structured communication evaluation.
Against generic coding tests
A timed algorithm test measures one narrow dimension. It does not tell you whether someone can design a data pipeline, debug a deployment failure, or explain an architecture trade-off.
Against transactional staffing
Transactional firms send volume and leave you to sort. Silicon Development does the sorting, evaluating depth, communication, and team fit before an engineer reaches your calendar.
Where this vetting has already held up
Three product teams where the engineers matched the environment, not just the resume.
Healthcare Data & Analytics
Healthcare Analytics Platform
A 6+ year embedded engineering partnership supporting clinical quality measures, platform modernization, and long-term delivery continuity in a regulated healthcare environment
Read case study →BioPharma
BioPharma AI Platform
A biotech company needed to turn RNA splicing research into a commercial SaaS platform for pharmaceutical clients. SD embedded a 10-person team to build it.
Read case study →LegalTech / FinTech
Enterprise Litigation Platform
A litigation platform serving major financial institutions needed embedded engineering capacity to build regulated workflows, document automation, and compliance tooling. SD provided a 7-person team for two years.
Read case study →When the real question is adjacent
Vetting matters, but buyers usually need one more lens: model fit, environment fit, or the nearshore decision.
Staff augmentation
Read this if the main question is the model: what embedded staffing looks like once the vetting bar is in place.
Review the model →Regulated product teams
Read this if evaluation needs to be understood through a healthcare, fintech, legaltech, or other security-sensitive environment.
See the regulated lane →Nearshore vs offshore
Read this if the role-fit question is really about overlap, communication conditions, and whether offshore is adding too much drag.
Compare the tradeoff →Meeting a candidate should feel like a fit check, not a first screen
That's the bar. The process exists to save your team from sorting through engineers who were never right for the role.