Recruiting creative talent, bringing a humane lens to people & purpose

Recruiting built on trust, not transactions.

Hiring and team-building across brand and product design, engineering, product management, strategy, content, and more — both leadership and ICs. I can help you hire your first & founding designer, then plan a road map for future hires.

Clients include early and seed-stage startups (Automat, InScope, Yuni), Series A/B companies (Regrello, Sigma Computing, Syniverse), and VC (Sutter Hill Ventures).

Candidates placed include strategists, founding designers, design leadership, staff engineer, and one fabulous CTO.

My differentiated offerings include:

• 30 years of building relationships across design and tech
• coaching new hires in their role for the first 90 days, included with placement fee
• rebalancing responsibility for a successful match, based on candidate and company profile

Current interests in the practice: authoring and open-sourcing a rubric for candidate self-assessment, peer/manager assessment, and hiring-manager planning; temp-to-perm work trials and trial project scoping; coursework for non-design recruiters on how to read a portfolio, and more.

“Josh from PeopleWork is an ideal recruiting partner — he understands our needs, nurtures qualified leads, and advocates on all sides for a successful match. Any CEO looking for a design-savvy recruiter with a high quality bar should work with him.” – Lucas Ochoa, CEO, Automat

“Josh connected me with Bunsen Studio, and with his guidance I transitioned into a full-time role there — five years later, I’m now Partner and Creative Director. As Bunsen grew, we brought him on as our recruiter; he’s helped us find talented designers, strategists, and project managers, many of whom became key members of our team. He’s a natural connector of people and opportunities in the design world.” – Emily VanderMey, Partner, Bunsen Studio

“Josh is an exceptional recruiter and mentor who leads with genuine care for people. He reads people well, sets a high bar, and turns connections into a lasting talent network. He generously guided me into my first role post-grad, connecting me to his network and freely sharing resources. He has a talent for building community, organizing networking events, and sustaining relationships long-term. I trust him completely as a career partner and as a leader. –Julie Ramsey