Three months into my first job I saw why hiring is broken, so I built something for it
I graduated with a CS degree a few months ago and started working at a tech staffing company. I figured I'd spend a while learning the ropes before touching anything real. Instead I spent my first weeks watching the same broken pattern play out over and over.
A company posts a role and gets 300 applications in two days. Maybe 10 get an actual look. A genuinely good candidate applies and hears nothing back, and assumes they weren't good enough, when really nobody got past the first page of the pile. Job boards get paid whether or not the hire actually happens, so there's no real pressure on them to make the matching good.
That felt fixable. So I built PrimeScale. Free to post a role, we only get paid when someone is actually placed. If we send bad matches, we make nothing, so there's no reason to flood a hiring manager just to look busy.
How it works
Employers sign up, post a role, and matching runs once it's live. Recruiters review high-confidence matches before anything hits your dashboard. You're not sorting through raw AI output yourself.
Candidates sign up, build a profile with skills and resume, and see roles that fit once the profile is complete. If you're interested and it's mutual, a recruiter takes it from there.
What surprised me building this fresh out of school
I had zero instinct for how much small stuff matters. I burned way more time than I expected on the favicon and wordmark, because when you're asking someone to trust you with an actual hire, sloppy details read as risk even if the product underneath is solid.
I also had to unlearn my first instinct, which was to lead with credibility I didn't have yet. Early drafts of the site leaned on vague experience language. It fell flat the second anyone actually tested the product. What worked was just being specific about the mechanic: paste a JD, get real matches in a day, pay only if it works.
Where it's at
Very early, and still shaping it. Free to post a role. We handle the sourcing, screening, compliance, and payroll on our end, so a hiring manager isn't left managing contracts and paperwork on top of finding the person.
A few things I actually want your take on:
- Would this beat just posting on a job board yourself?
- What's burned you most about remote tech hiring?
- What would make you trust a marketplace enough to actually pay for a placement?
https://primescale.io/ if you want to poke around. Genuinely want the pushback.
Charging only when someone actually gets placed is a strong signal, most marketplaces get paid regardless of outcome so the incentive is broken before day one. The favicon and wordmark thing rings true too, people decide whether to trust a marketplace with money on the line way faster than they decide whether to trust a blog post. What's getting employers to post a role before you have placements to point to yet?
Mostly that we're not a cold marketplace. The staffing company I work at already places remote tech candidates, so employers get a newer front end on a process that already exists, not a brand new unknown. Beyond that it's direct conversations, telling people we only get paid if it works out. Still figuring out how to actually get companies to post on their own without that one on one push, that's the part I don't have solved yet.
Being a front end on an existing placement process is a real trust shortcut, that's the thing pure marketplaces can't fake. The one-on-one push not scaling is the classic services-to-product tension, the human touch that builds trust is also the thing that caps growth. Have you tried testing what happens if you remove yourself from just one or two relationships and let a warm intro replace the push, see if trust transfers?
I’m curious how you’re thinking about the signal that tells you PrimeScale is solving the hiring problem.A lot of hiring products can improve the matching process, but the harder part seems to be proving that better matching actually changes outcomes — more qualified interviews, faster hiring, better retention, etc.Have you found any early signal that surprised you so far from employers or candidates using it?
Good question. Right now the early signal I’m watching is whether employers actually engage with the matches, not retention yet.
The edge I’m betting on is not matching alone. The site matches profiles to jobs, but recruiters still review those matches before anything hits an employer dashboard. So you’re not getting raw AI output. You’re getting matches a human already checked for fit.
For me, the near-term proof is: do those recruiter-reviewed matches turn into real interest and interviews. Longer-term outcomes like faster hiring and retention matter, but that comes after we prove the shortlist is actually usable.
That makes sense. I’d treat recruiter-reviewed match → employer action as the first test: for one fixed cohort, track matches shown, employers who engage, and interview requests within the same time window. What result would be strong enough for you to call the shortlist promising?
Great founder story. Many strong products come from experiencing a broken process firsthand — especially in areas like hiring where inefficiencies affect both companies and candidates.
The biggest opportunity in recruitment is not just matching keywords on resumes, but improving signal quality: understanding skills, potential, communication, and real-world ability. Tools that reduce noise while creating a better experience for both sides can have a huge impact.
Excited to see how this evolves. Building from a personal pain point is often where the most meaningful solutions start.
Appreciate that. Keyword matching is the easy part.
What we’re trying to do is reduce noise on both sides. The site matches candidates to roles, but recruiters still review those matches for accuracy before employers see them, and help keep the hiring process moving once there’s mutual interest. Matching gets you candidates. Recruiter review is what makes it trustworthy enough to act on.
Still early, but that’s the edge I’m building around.
One thing I'd keep testing is whether your advantage is better matching or better alignment of incentives.
"Pay only when someone is placed" changes how employers judge the platform. If they believe you only succeed when they do, that's a much stronger reason to try PrimeScale than simply claiming the AI finds better candidates.
That's a fair distinction and honestly I think you're right that it's the incentive alignment doing more work than the matching itself right now. The AI matching helps with speed, but I can't claim it's dramatically smarter than what a good recruiter already does manually. What I can claim is that we don't get paid unless the hire actually happens, so there's no reason to send you volume just to look responsive.
Long term I want both to be true. But if I had to pick which one is the actual reason someone should try this over a job board today, it's the incentive part. Appreciate you naming it, it's making me rethink how I lead with this.
I'm glad it resonated.
Your reply made me think there's one strategic decision sitting underneath that positioning shift which becomes much more significant as PrimeScale grows, but I don't think I can explain the reasoning properly in a thread without oversimplifying it.
If you're interested, what's the best email to reach you on?
Appreciate that, would love to hear the thinking. Mind giving me a quick preview here first? Just easier for me to follow along, and then happy to keep going over email if it needs more room.
Happy to.
The short version is that I don't think the interesting question is whether incentive alignment is a better positioning angle.
It's what happens to the business once that becomes the primary reason customers choose you.
Happy to unpack the reasoning over email if it's useful. What's the best email to reach you on?