Settle what a good data hire looks like before anyone goes looking.
Affinity Search Partners recruits data engineers, analysts, BI developers and the people who lead data teams. When a data search stalls, it is seldom for want of skills on paper. It stalls because nobody agreed what the role is for. We fix that first, in writing.
Founded in 2013, based in Brentwood, Tennessee, and hiring for employers across Middle Tennessee and the rest of the country.
Written candidate profile
Senior data engineer
Must have
- Has built and run pipelines that others rely on daily
- Writes SQL a colleague can pick up and change
- Has worked inside a cloud data warehouse
Nice to have
- Some modelling in dbt or a similar tool
- Has supported a BI team directly
Who they will work with
- Two analysts, the finance lead and the platform team
01The profile
Why the written profile comes before sourcing
Data teams rarely argue about whether a candidate knows SQL. They argue about whether the new person should build pipelines, answer questions from the business, or cover both, and who wins when those pull in different directions. Left unspoken, that disagreement makes every candidate look wrong to somebody.
So a search with us opens with a conversation between you, us and anyone else with a vote, and ends that conversation with a short document everybody signs off. It settles:
- the problem this hire is there to solve;
- which skills are required and which are a bonus;
- whom they sit beside and whom they answer to;
- the pay range, agreed inside your company before anyone is approached.
Only then do we start looking, beginning with people we already know and leaning toward those who are not on the market.
02The roles
Data and analytics roles we fill
- Data engineersIngestion, pipelines, warehouses and the plumbing reporting depends on.
- Data scientistsModelling and experimentation for teams that know which question they want answered.
- BI developersSemantic layers, dashboards and reports that finance and operations can trust.
- BI analystsPeople who turn a vague request into a clear view of the numbers.
- Data analystsDay to day analysis close to the business, often the first data hire in a department.
- Data and analytics leadersManagers and heads of data who set priorities and build the team around them.
03The scorecard
How our scorecard reads a data candidate
Every person we put forward is screened against the same four headings, measured against the profile you signed rather than a keyword list.
Skills
What have they shipped, how did they test it, and what did they do when it broke in production?
Motivation
Why would they move, and does your role give them that reason, or only a new title?
Compensation alignment
Checked early, so no one reaches the offer stage and discovers a gap.
References
Conversations with people who worked beside them, with attention to how they handled a hard stretch.
What reaches you is a shortlist of two to four people, each scored the same way, so comparing them is fair. If the search is not one we are right for, we will say so early.
04The wider practice
Beyond data: the rest of the technology team
Data work never sits alone, and neither does our recruiting. The same profile and scorecard carry across three other areas.
Cloud and infrastructure
Cloud, systems and network engineers, plus the help desk staff who keep everyone else working.
Software development
Software engineers, project and product managers, business analysts and QA.
Technology leadership
IT managers, directors and chief technology officers for pivotal leadership roles.
Employers we hire for work in technology, healthcare, manufacturing and financial services.
05Engagement
Ways to work together
Bring in a contractor or consultant to add capacity for a migration or a reporting push; take someone on contract-to-hire when you want to see their work before committing; make a permanent hire; or run a search for the person who will lead the function. The written profile and the scorecard sit underneath each of them, and we stay in touch through the first months after someone starts.
06Start here
A data role that keeps changing shape? Let's write it down.
Tell us what the team needs. We will help you turn it into a profile your whole group agrees on, and be candid about whether we are the right people to fill it.
Define the data role with us