The extended hiring period for experienced engineers has become a significant constraint for tech companies in AI and data science. On average, recruiters take up to 68 days to hire these specialists, and in some niche areas, the process can take up to 89 days. Naturally, this prolonged stagnation delays product development and limits the teams’ responsiveness. It has become clear that this approach requires reconsideration.
Some tech leaders are already implementing new, alternative hiring methods — more rapid and incorporating early technical screening of applicants. Pavlo Tantsiura, a technology entrepreneur and engineering leader, has spent 14+ years building distributed engineering teams with 350+ specialists. Over these years, he has developed unique hiring approaches that align with business processes and global technical standards. In this article, Pavlo explains how rapid hiring addresses key challenges and saves large companies money.
Fourteen Years of Scaling Engineering Teams at Global Scale
Pavlo Tantsiura spent years studying how tech startups operate and how strong ideas depend on strong teams. This led him to develop a rapid approach to hiring. He has worked on various projects, including Google-backed healthcare solutions, medical analytics and genomics initiatives, and AI-based products that have received international recognition, including Cannes Lions and Clutch awards.
The framework emphasizes direct executive involvement in the early stages of team formation, reducing onboarding time and increasing early productivity in distributed teams. By defining each engineer’s area of responsibility from the outset, Pavlo ensures faster onboarding and higher productivity in growing teams.
Through his Staff Augmentation service, CareMinds, Pavlo has also combined his experience managing European and Latin American teams. As a result, the framework enabled faster access to pre-screened technical specialists across multiple regions. By applying this hiring framework, organizations working with distributed engineering teams were able to access pre-screened technical specialists faster than through traditional internal recruiting.
According to the Tantsiura methodology, access to multiple large regions also allows for faster identification of suitable candidates and the establishment of cross-cultural connections for the exchange of experience and continuous learning.
Redefining the Hiring Process Through Automation and Accountability
The foundation of the speed-driven hiring approach is video-based screening and practical code testing, which make it easier to understand who the candidate really is and what skills they actually possess. From a pool of more than 1,000 screened candidates, the system selects the top 1% of developers, allowing businesses to avoid wasting time on candidates who are unlikely to be a good fit. In client projects, this model has reduced the average time to the first suitable candidate from several weeks to just a few days. The whole hiring cycle is often completed within two weeks.
Independent experts and Tantsiura’s clients note that his hiring approach differs from others. It is based on three key elements: early technical candidate testing, asynchronous selection, and active management involvement in the hiring process. For companies where project deadlines are critical, such as in healthcare or biotechnology, this speed of hiring is paramount.
Initially, the model was used within Tantsiura’s own organizations, but over time, engineering leaders began discussing it as a solution to the problem of long hiring cycles in technical fields, as delays in these areas can not only delay product releases but also violate regulatory requirements, leading to losses for the company.
CareMinds’ clients, such as healthcare, biotech startups, and mobile app companies, have been able to fill many critical positions, such as data engineers and SREs, faster than planned. This prevented production downtime, and the addition of new team members made scaling projects easier.
Building Products Using His Own Hiring Model
Pavlo Tantsiura applies the principles of rapid hiring to his own projects. He works on AI-based consumer applications in the healthcare space. He regularly participates in interviews and testing because, as CEO, he has a global plan for the company’s development and wants to personally assess whether a candidate is suitable to implement these ideas.
Teams created with this approach adapted more quickly to new conditions and smoothly transitioned to solving complex technical problems, such as upgrading legacy systems and implementing cloud infrastructure.
Speed, Trust, and the Future of Global Tech Hiring
As global demand for highly skilled tech talent continues to outpace supply, models that reduce time-to-hire without sacrificing quality will play an important role in scaling tech organizations. Most companies are currently just beginning this journey and must implement selection criteria that focus on candidates’ actual skills, cumulative experience, and direct management involvement in the hiring process.
Ultimately, fast and smart recruitment is not an end in itself but a tool for business development. On a global scale, this model is already changing how organizations find technical specialists and helping projects avoid development slowdowns and continue scaling.
April Isaacs is a news contributor for DevX.com She is long-term, self-proclaimed nerd. She loves all things tech and computers and still has her first Dreamcast system. It is lovingly named Joni, after Joni Mitchell.
