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DACH engineering hire

Hire AI evals engineers for your DACH team.

Find an engineer who can show whether an AI change improves your product. We assess test design, human review, model-based grading and regression analysis against the decisions your team needs to make.

Standard recruitment

Your search at a glance

Standard: 18% of first-year salary, paid on placement. No upfront fee; 90-day replacement guarantee. We confirm the fee basis for contractor engagements in your mandate.

Seniority
Mid-level · Senior · Staff / Tech Lead
Compensation guide
€56–76K indicative annual CEE contractor budget for senior.
Search markets
CEE candidates for DACH teams; working-hour overlap and work location agreed in your brief.

Compensation is indicative. We agree the salary band, locations and working-hour overlap before search; the placement fee is separate.

Evidence for your hiring decision

CV evidence, a role-specific technical interview and recruiter notes, with a human review before the shortlist reaches your team.

DACH-specific hiring context

Hire someone who can turn model scores into release decisions.

An evals engineer is useful when model changes are hard to compare, failures reach customers or teams disagree about what acceptable quality means. Start with the decision the evaluation must support: releasing a new model, changing retrieval, expanding to German-speaking users or limiting an agent’s actions. The role needs a clear owner and access to the people who understand the domain.

We assess how candidates build a representative test set, define a rubric, separate development data from evaluation data and explain uncertainty. Ask them to review an evaluation that shows an improvement overall but a regression for an important user group. Their response should connect the evidence to a release decision and further investigation.

When using an LLM as a judge, ask how its scores are checked against human judgements and how disagreements are investigated. Versioned test cases and repeatable comparisons help make changes reviewable. These are practical assessment areas consistent with OpenAI’s evaluation guidance; a tool name alone does not demonstrate them.

For a DACH product, include the languages, document formats and workflows your users encounter. Evaluation work may contribute technical evidence to a wider governance review, but the engineer does not replace your legal or compliance owners. We review job-relevant evidence, including confidential-work alternatives, rather than requiring a particular academic background or public benchmark score.

Across Recruo searches

Our recruitment results so far

Company-wide observations reported by Recruo’s founder on 11 September 2026. These describe our overall experience, rather than a separate cohort for this role or region.

Pass client technical interviews

≈9/10

Among shortlisted candidates who reach the client’s technical interview stage.

Candidates the client would offer to

≈4/5

Client willingness to make an offer after assessment. Offers sent, accepted and hires are separate outcomes.

Completed probation periods passed

100%

All placed candidates whose probation has concluded have passed so far. Ongoing probation periods are excluded.

How to read these results

Pass client technical interviews: Candidates who pass the client technical interview stage, divided by shortlisted candidates assessed at that stage. Around 9 in 10 is an approximate general observation, not a published sample of exactly ten people.

Candidates the client would offer to: Presented candidates the client considers suitable for an offer, divided by candidates presented. Around 4 in 5 describes willingness to offer; it does not mean four offers or hires for every five candidates.

Completed probation periods passed: Placed candidates who passed probation, divided by placements whose probation period has ended. Probation lengths vary by engagement; this is not a 90-day retention measure or a guarantee of future outcomes.

Sample sizes and the reporting period are not yet published. The candidate ratios are approximate; none of these results is a forecast for your vacancy.

Germany budget guide

Plan the salary, contract budget and placement fee.

Swipe across to compare placement fees →

DACH salary bands by seniority: local salary, Recruo CEE-equivalent, Recruo fee, Personalberatung fee and illustrative fee difference
SeniorityGermany employee salaryCEE contractor budget18% of CEE contract budget25% of Germany salary (example)Illustrative fee difference
Mid-level€68–88K€40–55K€7.2–9.9K€17–22K€9.8–12.1K
Senior€98–125K€56–76K€10.08–13.68K€24.5–31.3K€14.42–17.62K
Staff / Tech Lead€125–155K€76–102K€13.68–18.36K€31.3–38.8K€17.62–20.44K

Indicative planning ranges for Germany employee base salaries and CEE annual contractor budgets, not measured market medians or a Switzerland/Austria benchmark. Fees are paid once: 18% of the CEE contractor budget shown versus 25% of the Germany salary shown. The difference combines two effects: different compensation bases and different fee rates. It is not a like-for-like saving on the same salary. Employer taxes, benefits, EOR costs and other engagement costs are excluded. The comparison agency rate is an assumption, not a market-wide standard. Figures are rounded; the fee difference on the same salary is 7 percentage points.

Budget assumptions

Budget the placement fee and the engagement separately.

These ranges are indicative planning estimates, not a measured salary survey or a candidate quote. The local column describes annual employee salary; the CEE column describes annual B2B contract fees. They are different engagement models. Compare employer contributions, benefits, leave, equipment, tax treatment and any EOR fees before comparing total costs. The figures are not a country-specific quote for Austria or Switzerland.

Illustrative fee example: on the same €100,000 first annual salary, Recruo Standard at 18% is €18,000. A hypothetical agency fee of 25% is €25,000, a €7,000 difference. The 25% is a comparison assumption, not a claimed market standard. Table fee differences also reflect different compensation bases; they are not savings from the fee rate alone. For B2B engagements, agree the annual fee basis in the mandate.

First-shortlist timing

Recruo first shortlist: First shortlist in 5 business days after an approved brief and signed mandate

The shortlist starts your interviews; a signed offer is a later milestone. Timing begins after the approved JD and signed mandate.

What affects the start date

No directly comparable market benchmark is presented

Client interviews, offer decisions and notice periods follow the shortlist.

Recruo service commitment for the first shortlist. Interviews, notice periods and the start date follow a separate timeline.

Work-authorisation patterns

  • Confirm the hiring entity, candidate’s actual work location and engagement model before agreeing terms.
  • Review local employment, contracting and work-authorisation requirements for the planned arrangement with the relevant advisers or provider.
  • Germany, Austria and Switzerland need separate country review; a German rule or an EU-region hosting choice is not a DACH-wide clearance.

Level of ownership

Choose a senior engineer to own evaluation design and release evidence. Staff scope can include standards used by several teams, reviewer workflows and resolving trade-offs between product, engineering and domain experts.

Remote setup

Define how the engineer works with domain reviewers, who can label sensitive examples and which environments they may access. Agree meeting hours and the working language before sourcing so evaluation feedback can happen within your team’s process.

Contracting and candidate data: what to agree before search

DACH contracting review

Choose the contracting structure for the actual engagement.

B2B contracting and employment through an EOR are different arrangements. Review employment status, payroll, worker-leasing and local requirements with qualified advisers before the role starts. A foreign registered business is not a blanket exemption from employment obligations.

Privacy and human oversight

Human-in-the-loop is the default, not a retrofit.

A human recruiter reviews shortlist evidence before client handoff. Data-processing roles, notices, retention, hosting and transfer arrangements need to match the engagement. Ask our team for the applicable terms and documentation for your review.

Technical perspective

Oleh Datskiv

Oleh Datskiv

CEO & Co-founder

Oleh leads Recruo and contributes technical review to the search, helping the recruitment team assess relevant engineering experience against your role brief.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

An LLM engineer primarily builds model-powered behaviour. An evals engineer primarily builds the measurement and review process used to assess it. The roles can overlap; a dedicated evals hire makes sense when that measurement work needs sustained ownership.

No. The role can produce repeatable tests, documented limitations and technical evidence for your review. Applicable obligations and an audit outcome depend on the system, its use and the organisation’s broader controls.

We ask how they chose a rubric, compared judge outputs with human labels and handled inconsistent or biased scores. A job-relevant exercise can ask them to identify weaknesses in an existing evaluation and explain what evidence would justify a release.

That depends on access to examples, domain reviewers and a clear decision to support. Set the first milestone around one representative workflow, an agreed rubric and a repeatable comparison. We do not present a universal delivery timeline as a measured placement result.

After the role brief is approved and the mandate is signed. We confirm the scope and requirements first. The commitment concerns the first shortlist, not a completed hire; interviews, any additional checks and the candidate’s notice period affect the start date.

Standard is a fixed 18% of the first annual salary, with the fee basis agreed in the mandate. It includes a 90-day replacement guarantee under the written terms. Replacement cover and the hire’s probation period are separate; review the agreement for the covered circumstances.

Get started

Tell us about your open role

Share your DACH AI evals engineer brief. We agree scope, budget and timing with you; the 5-business-day first-shortlist timeline starts after the brief is approved and the mandate is signed.

Pay on placement

No upfront fee on the Standard plan

90-day guarantee

On Standard: free re-search if hire leaves

Human review

Recruiters review the screening evidence

Your hiring request

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