who we are

A small firm built around research depth, not volume.

Leda is structured to do one thing well: track the engineers who matter most in a small number of highly technical talent markets — and serve the organisations that genuinely need them.

// home edition. work edition available on request.

// founder

Josh Longmore

founder & managing partner · new york

I started Leda after years of watching the engineers who matter most in infrastructure, SRE, and core systems get reduced to keyword matches and InMail templates.

The people who maintain the libraries the rest of the stack runs on don't post their resumes on LinkedIn. Reaching them takes patience, depth, and a real understanding of the work — and most search firms don't have any of those. Leda is built around them.

We do research before we have mandates. We build relationships years before they're transactional. And we turn down briefs we can't serve well — because the shortest engagement is the one we never started.

how we work

Four things that don't change.

We've built the firm around them. They're why senior engineers take our calls and why our clients keep coming back.

Research before mandates

We map markets we believe in long before any client asks. By the time a search opens, we already know who the candidates are, what they care about, and whether they'll move.

Primary sources, not InMail

We read mailing lists, watch commit histories, attend the conferences that matter. The engineers we work with are recommended by people they trust — not pinged by a recruiter cold.

Depth over volume

We focus on a small number of highly technical markets. We turn down briefs outside them. Generalist coverage is somebody else's business model.

Honest about fit

If we can't serve a brief well, we say so before you've signed anything. Same with candidates — we'll tell you straight when a role isn't right for you.

growing the team

The next hires.

We operate in small, focused pods — a founder/business lead paired with research and execution specialists. Here's who we're building toward.

research

Research Analyst

Owns the intelligence layer — talent maps, primary-source monitoring, candidate warming.

open · read the JD

advisory

Practice Advisor

A senior practitioner in one of our talent markets. Part-time. Helps us calibrate.

coming soon