Foundational hires · High-growth technology
Where quality meets scale.
Hourglass is a boutique search partner for the hires that decide a company's trajectory. We place foundational go-to-market, growth, and technical talent at high-growth technology companies, from seed through Series D, with the rigor of a retained executive search firm and the urgency of a founder who has a number to hit.
Where our people land
Partnership over recruiting
Recruiters fill seats. We build the teams that raise the next round.
A recruiter sends you resumes. A partner knows your market, your comp, your competitors' org charts, and which of the six people you are about to meet will still be there in three years.
Hourglass runs every search the way retained executive firms run a C-suite engagement: a defined slate, deep referencing, weekly momentum, and candor about what the market will and will not give you. The difference is that we apply that discipline to the roles most firms treat as volume, because at a company that is still being built, a founding AE is an executive hire.
We take on a deliberately small number of searches at a time. When we say yes, you have our full attention.
Who we place
The seats that move the number.
A specialty in go-to-market and growth, with the technical bench to build the whole front line around it.
Go-to-market & growth
- Account Executives
- SDRs & BDRs
- Account Managers
- Customer Success
- Sales Engineers
- Sales Leadership
- Strategy & Ops
- RevOps
- Marketing & Growth
- CRO / VP Sales
Technical
- Founding Engineers
- GTM Engineers
- Forward Deployed Engineers
- Software Engineers
- ML & AI Engineers
- Solutions Architects
- Engineering Leadership
- Data & Analytics
- CTO / VP Engineering
Engagement models
Retained-search discipline, whatever the engagement.
Choose the structure that fits the role and the urgency. The sourcing depth, the referencing, and the honesty do not change.
Full-cycle search
Sourcing, screening, scheduling, referencing, and close, run entirely by us. You show up for the conversations that matter and we own everything between them.
Contingent search
No fee until someone signs. The right structure for individual-contributor roles where you want senior-level rigor without a retainer.
Retained search
A dedicated engagement for senior, hard-to-fill, or multi-seat hires. A defined slate, weekly cadence, and our undivided attention until the seat is filled.
Executive search
VP- and C-level go-to-market and technical leaders. Discreet outreach, deep referencing, and calibration against the stage you are actually at, not the one on the pitch deck.
Hiring roadmaps
Comp bands, role sequencing, interview loops, and the hiring plan behind your next round. The work that should happen before a single job is posted.
How a search runs
Boutique by design. Relentless by default.
Three phases, one point of contact, and a fifteen-minute weekly call so nothing sits in an inbox waiting.
Kickoff & calibration
One alignment call on the role, the comp, the must-haves, and the deal-breakers. You see a first slate within days, and we sharpen the profile from your reactions.
Week 1Weekly sync & momentum
A fifteen-minute touchpoint each week. Pipeline review, interview feedback, and scheduling handled on the call so candidates never go cold.
Weeks 1 – 3Final fit & close
References, compensation, counteroffer risk, and start date. We stay in the loop through the first weeks on the job, not just to the signature.
Offer → Day 30Track record
Founding hires at companies backed by the best.
We build the first go-to-market and technical teams inside portfolio companies of the most selective investors in technology.
In their words
What it is like to be represented by Hourglass.
I've worked with a lot of recruiters. Nobody compares to Dave. Working with someone who has actually done enterprise sales and walked the walk was incredibly valuable. He didn't just send me opportunities and wish me luck. He practiced pitches with me, worked through tough questions, and showed me exactly how he'd prepare for an onsite. And when it mattered, I knew he was battling for me behind the scenes just as hard as I was preparing for the interview.Andrew SianaFounding GTM, ClaimSorted
- PathManagement Consulting → Enterprise Sales → Search
- PreviouslyDeloitte Consulting · MuleSoft · MongoDB · SentinelOne
- EducationB.S. Finance, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
- BasedNew York, by way of San Francisco
Founder
Dave Turchin
Founder & Managing Partner, Hourglass
Dave Turchin founded Hourglass after a fifteen-year career that ran from management consulting to enterprise sales, and from San Francisco to New York, with stops at Deloitte Consulting, MuleSoft, MongoDB, and SentinelOne along the way.
That background is the point. Dave has carried the number, run the discovery calls, and built the pipeline. He evaluates candidates the way a great sales leader evaluates a rep on a ride-along, not the way a resume screen does, and he coaches every candidate he represents with the same intensity he once brought to a quarter-end close.
He has been featured in industry publications and podcasts on sales, hiring, and go-to-market strategy, and has spoken at industry conferences including Oracle OpenWorld.
Why the hourglass.
Every open seat costs a company something it cannot get back: pipeline that was never built, deals that were never worked, a quarter that went by. The hourglass is a reminder that time is the real cost of a bad hiring process, and the reason we run ours the way we do.
Start a conversation
Tell us about the seat.
A few lines is enough. You will hear back within one business day, and the first call is a candid conversation about whether we are the right partner for the search, not a pitch.
Prefer email? dave@daveturchin.com