Speak with strong recruiters that I know and raise these things, possibly capture interview

[stemount]

Even though this project is called skip-the-recruiter, there is very valid necessity for recruitment consultants as: (just riffing)

1. Software Engineering IS a sellers market
2. Small teams under 50 generally do not have HR and Talent in-house because funding is structured in a funny way
3. Recruiters have freelancers that they have relationships with, maybe even going back 30 years, so they can GUARANTEE from the client's feedback that they know their craft and the previous team enjoyed working with them.
4. this that the other... I'll let the recruiters fill in the gap of their USPs to give this a real fair fight.