The brief
We take the role apart with you: what the work actually is, what evidence would prove someone can do it, and what it pays. The brief is versioned, and everything downstream is scored against it — not against a wish list.
UK · permanent technology recruitment
Hire on evidence, not claims.
Merit by Design is a two-person agency for permanent tech hires. A senior engineer technically assesses every candidate before we make any introduction — so you see the working, not just the CV.
claim
“Led the migration of our payments platform to event sourcing.”
probe
Which failure made you regret the design — and what did you change?
evidence
Named the outage, the idempotency bug and the replay fix. First-hand, specific, consistent under probing.
assessment
Technical depth 4/5 — production evidence, honest about the trade-offs.
unknown
Kubernetes internals — not tested. Marked, not assumed.
A CV is a set of claims.
Keyword searches can’t tell you which claims are true. Interview loops test memory and stamina more often than judgement. And the truth about a mis-hire arrives on the job, at full salary, months in. We built our agency around the checking.
The method
How an introduction earns its place
Five steps, in order, every time. No step is skipped and no step is delegated.
The search
We approach people we can honestly vouch for, and we ask before anything moves. Introductions stay anonymous until both sides want the conversation — no names traded, in either direction, without consent.
The assessment
Every candidate sits a 45-minute technical conversation with a senior engineer — before you ever see them. Not a quiz, not a memory test: real examples, real constraints, and every judgement typed as claim, evidence, assessment or unknown.
The shortlist
Only candidates with a completed, current assessment can be put forward. You receive a suitability report that shows the working — what was claimed, what we saw evidence for, what we judged, and what we didn’t test.
Aftercare
We check in on day one, week one and month one — aftercare is the guarantee, working. If something is wrong, we hear it early and act on it.
The assessment, in the open
Most agencies say they vet. Here is our actual scorecard.
“Set the contract: this is a technical conversation, not a memory test. Ask for real examples, make uncertainty safe and follow the evidence.”
— the opening line of every Merit assessment sheet
Technical depth
Specific mechanisms, constraints and first-hand production evidence.
System design
Boundaries, trade-offs, failure modes and the ability to revise the design.
Delivery judgement
Prioritisation, risk control, observability and decisions made under pressure.
Communication
Clear assumptions, honest uncertainty and explanations that improve with probing.
Leadership
Ownership, influence and better outcomes for the wider engineering system.
claim
The candidate said it. Recorded — but not yet verified.
evidence
We discussed real work: specifics, constraints, first-hand detail.
assessment
Our assessor’s judgement, scored and on the record.
unknown
Not tested. Marked honestly — never silently scored as failure.
universal engineer
backend
distributed systems
frontend
platform & reliability
technical leadership
Assessments expire. After six months we reassess rather than resell — and matching only ever ranks candidates whose assessment is still current.
45′
Every assessment is a 45-minute conversation with a senior engineer. None are delegated.
5
Competencies scored on every candidate, with typed evidence behind every score.
6 mo
Assessment freshness window. Stale evidence is redone, not resold.
2
People on your search, end to end. The one who takes the brief works it.
0
Introductions made without consent. No names traded, in either direction.
The guarantee
If a hire doesn’t work out, we go again.
Replacement first
Our first remedy is the work, not a refund negotiation. If an early hire fails, our default is to run the search again.
Agreed before we start
The guarantee itself — window, remedy, fee — is plain English in our Terms of Business, agreed up front. We don’t do small print; we put yours in writing.
The founders
Two people. No handoffs.
Merit by Design is deliberately small: the person who takes your brief is the person who works it.
Haya
Consultant · relationships
Owns every relationship: qualification, briefs, candidate care and the honest phone call. If you talk to Merit, you talk to Haya.
LinkedIn ↗Adam
Technical assessor · engineering
A senior engineer who runs every technical assessment personally, one conversation at a time. Nothing is delegated, nothing is outsourced.
LinkedIn ↗
For candidates
Be judged on what you can do.
Free to you — always.
We are paid by the companies that hire, never by you.
Nothing leaves us without your yes.
We name the company and the role, and get your agreement, before your details go anywhere.
Unknown is not a failure.
What we didn’t test is marked honestly on your assessment — never scored against you.
We recruit on merit.
The assessment is a fair, technical conversation about your real work — and it stays yours, reused across roles rather than repeated for each one.
Current searches
Live searches are on LinkedIn.
Roles move faster than marketing sites. We post every open search on LinkedIn — where you already are — and keep this page evergreen rather than stale.
Questions we’d ask too
The straight answers
What does it cost?
Typically contingency — if we don’t place, you don’t pay. The exact fee and payment terms are agreed in writing before we start, and we’ll be straight about numbers on the first call.
What do we actually receive?
A short list of assessed candidates, each with a suitability report: scores across five competencies, the evidence behind each score typed as claim, evidence, assessment or unknown, and an honest account of what wasn’t tested.
What happens if the hire doesn’t work out?
Every engagement carries a guarantee agreed up front. Our default remedy is replacement-first — if an early hire fails, we run the search again rather than argue about rebates. The window and conditions are in the Terms of Business you’ll have before anything starts.
Do you insist on exclusivity?
No. We work contingency by default — if you want us retained or exclusive, that’s a conversation, not a condition.
How do you handle data?
UK GDPR throughout: CVs stored with EU data residency, consent recorded per introduction, and retention reviewed on a schedule rather than data quietly kept forever. No decision that significantly affects you is made by a computer alone.
Do you use AI?
As a drafting tool, never as a decision-maker. Software may draft a summary; a named human reviews it, and no candidate is rejected, submitted or ranked by a machine on its own. Our assessments are two people in a real conversation.
Send us the brief that’s been hard to fill.
A 20-minute call is enough to tell whether we can help — and if we can’t, we’ll say so.
haya@meritbydesign.com