Hiring designers · Rooted in the community
A free 30-minute call to talk about your next hire.
Founder & design leader
Design recruitment
Design & tech recruitment
Individual LinkedIn follower counts · September 2026
Relationships that make a difference
“He operated like an embedded member of our talent acquisition team with the specialized design network we couldn’t build internally.”
Three ways to hire
Pick the model that matches your bottleneck: a full search when you need the hire made, a weekly shortlist when your team can screen but not source, or fractional support when you need design capacity now.
Every model starts with calibration: clear decision criteria before any candidate is presented.
End-to-end design recruitment for first design hires, scaling ICs, leadership roles, and urgent backfills. We brief, benchmark, source, screen, and support you through to the offer.
20% success fee
€1,500 engagement fee, credited to the total. See terms
A weekly list of strongly matching candidates, selected against the competencies agreed in calibration and drawn from our pool and the wider market.
Flat weekly fee
Scoped to volume before work starts. See terms
Pre-screened freelance designers and fractional design leads, matched to your requirements and ready to start.
Day rate
Billed monthly. No placement fee. See terms
Book a free intro call. We'll assess the role and your hiring goals and recommend one, including when the answer is not to search yet.
How it works
Brief, benchmark, shortlist, and support. The cadence is agreed before sourcing starts, so you always know what arrives when.
We learn the company, the role, the interview process, and the search context. Ideally we schedule the benchmarking call right there.
You get: a clear role brief and search context.
We send 5 profiles in advance and listen to your read on each one. That conversation calibrates the bar.
You get: a shared read on the competencies, signals, and tradeoffs that matter.
We source and screen against the calibrated bar, then prepare candidates who are ready for your interviews.
You get: 3 to 5 screened candidates within 5 business days of the benchmark.
We keep the search moving through interviews and offer close, and report weekly on market signal, pipeline, risks, and decisions needed.
You get: up to 5 screened candidates a week, scheduling, feedback loops, and offer support.
This is the Full Search flow. Weekly Shortlist uses the same calibration, then delivers a matching list each week for your team to screen. Fractional Design Support starts from the brief and matches directly.
What you receive
Representative profiles show how we frame screened candidates: the evidence, the risk to validate, and the interview prompt. Pick a role and an industry to see how the read changes.
Profiles are anonymised and representative. Company names show relevant experience, not endorsements.
Shortlist insight
Evaluated on: role fit · domain depth · scope handled · collaboration · evidence of impact
Every Full Search candidate set includes role-fit notes, interview prompts, and a calibrated scorecard.
Want a shortlist like this for your open role? The intro call is where we calibrate it.
Who you'll work with
Based in Berlin, with relationships across Europe’s design community and nearly three decades of combined experience in design recruitment and design leadership. We bring those connections into every search, then read portfolios the way hiring managers do and run searches the way recruiters do.
Design recruiter for product, brand, and creative roles
Rory combines a strong industry network with deep market insight to match design talent with the right roles and teams, from seed stage to global enterprise.
Yara · Moonfare · Phiture · Contro · Root Global
Design and tech recruiter with a global network built in Berlin
Mathieu has spent over a decade connecting design and tech professionals with the organizations shaping the future, placing 780+ talents across 15+ cities worldwide.
Plugsurfing · FATMAP · Lab1886 (Daimler) · Journee
Hiring-manager calibration
Design hiring often fails before sourcing starts: unclear seniority, weak portfolio signal, and interview loops that reward polish over evidence. So every search has clear criteria before a single candidate is presented, and the output is a shortlist your team can actually discuss: role-fit notes, interview prompts, and the tradeoffs to validate before offer.
Portfolio signal
What the work proves, what it leaves unclear, and which questions should be tested in interview.
Seniority evidence
Whether the candidate has owned the ambiguity, stakeholder pressure, and delivery scope the role needs.
Product judgment
How the designer frames tradeoffs, works with product and engineering, and connects craft to business context.
Client proof
From seed-stage founders to multinational companies, decision-makers trust us to hire designers for critical product, brand, and leadership roles.
Rory supported us at Yara during a key design leadership search, and he helped us define and translate a complex, and somewhat ambiguous, brief into a successful design director hire. He took time to understand the context, stakeholders, and what our new organisation truly needed, not just the role description.
Rory helped us hire product design, brand design & design leadership during a significant growth phase. What set him apart was how quickly he understood our needs—not just on paper, but culturally and creatively. He invested time upfront with our team rather than immediately flooding us with CVs, which meant the candidates he presented were genuinely relevant. Regular updates, no wasted interviews, and zero hard-sell tactics. He operated like an embedded member of our talent acquisition team with the specialized design network we couldn’t build internally.
Mathieu has been instrumental in helping both Plugsurfing and my previous company, FATMAP, hire senior design and engineering leaders. He is well connected in the Berlin technology scene and always connected us with excellent talent. He has been an invaluable partner in our recruitment efforts and I highly recommend Mathieu to any company seeking top-tier design and engineering talent.
Rory helped us find a Product Designer for our team. It wasn't an easy brief—we needed someone experienced but not too senior. He quickly understood what we were looking for and sent us several strong candidates. He even found someone with agricultural tech experience, which was an unexpected plus. I appreciated how responsive and understanding he was, especially knowing how busy things get when a team is understaffed. We're really happy with the candidate he found and with the whole experience.
Rory helped us hire a Creative Lead from Google who exceeded our expectations. The process was simple, fast, and effective. He demonstrated a deep understanding of our brief and effectively communicated our services to passive candidates we wouldn't have reached otherwise.
I have been working successfully with Mathieu for over 10 years. He successfully placed me as Head of UX/UI Design at LAB 1886, the Venture Builder of Daimler AG. After that, he helped me build the team there and later on again when Journee hired me as CD. Mathieu is fast, international and very well connected in the digital scene. Besides all his professionalism, he has his own charming style that makes it fun for both candidates and companies to work with him.
Rory helped our startup immensely. He quickly understood the profile we wanted in a founding designer, and he worked relentlessly sourcing and carefully preselecting excellent profiles. He pitched our startup to those candidates really well and ensured even the strongest were keen to interview. He iterated with us as we refined the search and always kept us updated throughout the process. Rory never overpromised; he simply delivered a great experience from start through signing and beyond. It helps that he is a real pleasure to work with, but he truly stands out as a highly gifted recruiter who puts in the time. We worked with many recruiters for this role and hired one of Rory's candidates and couldn't be happier with them.
Pricing
One clear commercial model per engagement, named before the work starts. You always know whether you are buying a search outcome, a weekly matching list, or fractional capacity. Never a hybrid.
20%
success fee on first-year base salary
Weekly fee
flat, scoped to volume
Day rate
billed monthly
How we measure whether it's working
FAQ
Fees, timelines, what we need from you, and how this differs from a generalist recruiter. Anything else, ask on the call.
Book a free intro callNext step
Book a free 30 minute intro call. We'll calibrate the role, recommend a model, and outline the plan.
