Elixir Developer Recruitment

ElixirConf
Speaker in 2023 & 2026
72 hours
Typical time to first shortlist
UK · EU · US
Markets we hire across
100%
Specialist tech only

Elixir Hiring Is Its Own Problem

There is no big pool of Elixir engineers. There is a small one, and most of it is not looking.

Elixir is a deliberate choice. Teams pick it for concurrency, fault tolerance and the kind of uptime that the BEAM gives you almost for free. The trade-off is the hiring market. Nobody is producing Elixir engineers at volume. Most came to it from Ruby, taught themselves OTP properly, and are now happily building something they believe in. They are not refreshing job boards.

That is why a generic agency struggles. They search for the keyword, surface a Ruby developer who once shipped a side project in Phoenix, and call it a match. I work the actual Elixir community, I can tell real OTP depth from a CV that name-drops GenServer, and I know what makes a happy Elixir engineer take a call.

Talk to Arj

What teams tell me

"The role has been open five months. Every CV is a Ruby dev who read one Phoenix tutorial."

"Every recruiter we briefed clearly googled Elixir the same morning. None of them understood the stack."

"We found someone good and lost them to another offer while we were still booking the second interview."

Roles We Place

Across the whole Elixir and BEAM ecosystem.

Backend
Elixir Engineers

OTP, GenServer, Ecto and distributed systems. Mid-level through to senior and staff engineers who can own concurrency and reliability properly.

Full Stack
Phoenix & LiveView Engineers

Engineers who build real-time product with Phoenix and LiveView and can hold their own on the front end without reaching for a separate SPA.

Interim
Contract Elixir Engineers

Day-rate engineers to plug a gap, hit a deadline or cover a permanent search. Vetted to the same bar, usually live within 48 hours of the brief.

Leadership
Elixir Engineering Managers

EMs who came up through functional teams, understand how Elixir engineers work, and can build process without smothering the things that made the team pick Elixir.

Leadership
VP Engineering & CTO

Technical leaders for Series A and beyond who can scale a BEAM-based platform and, just as importantly, recruit and retain the rare people who can run it.

Adjacent
Erlang & Polyglot Engineers

The wider BEAM world: Erlang, and the strong Ruby, Go and functional engineers who make credible Elixir hires with the right onboarding.

The Process

From brief to first shortlist in 72 hours.

Most Elixir searches stall because the recruiter is running forty unrelated roles and treating yours like the rest. I cap my active searches on purpose, so yours gets a real one and it gets it fast.

1
Brief call, 30 minutes

We get into the detail: how deep your Elixir stack actually goes, team structure, stage, what good looks like, and why the last search did not land. Context is what lets me search properly.

2
Active search, the same day

Targeted, personal outreach into the Elixir community from the moment we hang up. No database blasts. In most cases I have already spoken to people who fit before I send you a name.

3
First shortlist, within 72 hours

An initial shortlist of credible, interested candidates inside three days, each with a written profile rather than a CV dump and an honest read on their real OTP and Phoenix depth. We refine from there as the search runs.

4
Offer and close

I manage the offer, the counter-offer and the notice period. Most lost Elixir hires fall apart here because nobody is managing the candidate through it. I am.

Why AG Talent

A specialist who actually knows the Elixir community.

Inside the community

I follow the Elixir world properly, conferences and all. That is where these engineers are, and it is why my outreach gets read rather than deleted.

I can read the stack

I know the difference between someone who has shipped real OTP systems and someone who has skimmed the docs. You stop wasting interview slots on the second kind.

I run the search

No junior resourcer working your brief while the senior name goes to lunch. You brief me, I work it, you deal with me the whole way through.

Honest, not salesy

If the role is unbuildable at your budget, or Elixir is not really what you need, I will say so. No wasted time on either side.

On The ElixirConf Stage

I do not just recruit in Elixir. I speak at its conferences.

Most recruiters watch the Elixir market from the outside. I stand on the ElixirConf EU stage and talk to the people who build with it. That is the network your search runs through.

Lightning Talk · ElixirConf EU 2026
The Elixir Hiring Paradox

Why a language teams love is so hard to hire for, and what actually works when the talent pool is this small.

Watch the talk
Lightning Talk · ElixirConf EU 2023
Hiring Elixir Devs in 2023

The market, the trends and the practical moves that get Elixir roles filled, from candidate experience to hiring across languages and borders.

Watch the talk

What Clients Say

"Arj was fantastic in supporting the team to find an Elixir contractor. Throughout the whole process he was able to support and advise the team, which allowed us to offer a candidate in less than two weeks of our initial outreach. Given the complexity of our search, we have been incredibly impressed with the service provided and the efficiency with which the process was handled."

Tayla Saffhill, People & Operations Lead, Track24

Common Questions

What teams ask before briefing an Elixir search.

Where do you actually find Elixir engineers?

Not on job boards. The strongest Elixir engineers are heads-down at companies they like and are reached through the community, referrals and direct, credible outreach. A good chunk came to Elixir from Ruby or other functional backgrounds, so I look wider than the obvious keyword search.

Do you cover Phoenix, LiveView, Nerves and Erlang?

Yes, the whole BEAM ecosystem. Phoenix and LiveView for product teams, Nerves for embedded and IoT, and Erlang where the platform calls for it. Tell me the specifics of your stack and I will brief against them.

Contract or permanent?

Both. Permanent searches for core team and leadership, and interim Elixir contractors on a day rate when you need to move fast or cover a gap. The Track24 search above was a contract Elixir hire closed in under two weeks.

Can you hire remote, or only in the UK?

I place across the UK, Europe and the US, and I work with remote-first teams hiring engineers based anywhere. With Elixir in particular, widening the geography is often what makes a hard search solvable.

What is your fee structure?

Typically 20% of first-year base salary. For senior, confidential or multiple-hire mandates I work retained or exclusive, with the fee split across brief, shortlist and placement. We agree everything upfront.

What if the hire does not work out?

There is a rebate period on every placement. If a hire leaves inside that window, I re-run the search at no additional cost.

From The Insights

More on the Elixir hiring market.

ElixirConf EU 2026
The Elixir Hiring Paradox

The three mistakes companies make at the start of an Elixir search, and what the conversations in Malaga taught me.

Read the article
Market View
How to Hire Elixir Developers

Where the senior Elixir engineers actually are, what they expect on pay and remote working, and why now is the best hiring window in years.

Read the article
Market View
Hiring Elixir Developers in 2026

What one week of Elixir interviews revealed about the 2026 market: who is available, what they ask for, and how fast good people come off the market.

Read the article

Hiring Elixir engineers?

Book a 30-minute call. No pitch, no hard sell. Tell me what you are building and I will tell you whether I can help.

Book a call with Arj