The guidelines for scouts and partners.recruiters.operators.

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Professional independent recruiters and talent partners who specialize in tech — engineering, product, or GTM — and have a track record placing at startups or high-growth companies. Deep networks in SF, NY, or London. Quality-over-volume approach. If you're looking to run a curated, high-conversion desk without the overhead of running an agency or the grind of doing BD, you're in the right place.

Three steps. (1) Book a 15-minute intro call — we align on your expertise, network, and the best-fit roles. (2) Sign the partner agreement — it's a one-click clickwrap that takes 30 seconds, covering the 70% split and 24-month candidate protection. (3) Get full platform access — browse every open role with complete context, salary bands, and estimated payouts. Most partners are submitting their first candidates within days of joining.

Yes. Refery partner recruiters are professionals with a demonstrable track record — people who've run successful desks, placed senior talent at startups, and built reputations in their specific domain. If you're earlier in your career or looking to refer opportunistically without a full recruiting motion, our operator scout program is a better fit — ask about it on your intro call.

None. No minimum placements. No monthly quota. No platform fee. Work the roles that match your network when you have the bandwidth. We bet that great recruiters with great deal flow place consistently — the volume takes care of itself.

Depends on your activity level and network fit. Most partners submit their first candidates within the first week. Talent Committee vetting is 48 hours. Time-to-placement typically runs 4–8 weeks depending on the client's interview process. First payouts typically land 10–14 weeks after your first submission, accounting for interview cycles, offer acceptance, start date, and the guarantee period.

After you sign the partner agreement, you have full access to the platform and visibility to all available jobs. You start sending over candidates, and we take it from there.

70% of the placement fee. A role's fee is either a percentage of the candidate's first-year base salary — usually 10–20%, negotiated between Refery and the client — or a fixed referral fee (e.g. $10,000, $25,000, $50,000). Each role shows its confirmed fee structure before you work it, and the fee shown when you submit is the fee that applies to any resulting placement. On a $350K senior hire, a 10% fee pays you $24,500 and a 20% fee pays you $49,000. On a fixed $15K referral fee, you earn $10,500. Your 70% share is constant — no tiering, caps, or clawbacks.

Two things have to be true: the candidate has passed 90 days of continuous employment, and Refery has collected the placement fee from the client. Once both are true, your payout goes out within 14 business days. On our standard client terms the client pays 30 days after the start date, so the money is already with us well before day 90 and day 90 is the only thing you are waiting on. A few clients are on longer terms, and there your payout follows their payment instead; we show you that timing on the role before you work it. The 90-day clock runs from the candidate's start date, and standard time off or approved leave (medical, parental, military) under the employer's own policies does not interrupt it.

Direct bank transfer (ACH or wire) for US-based partners, and Wise for international partners.

If the hire's employment ends for any reason within the 90 days, whether that is resignation, performance, restructuring or layoff, no payout is made, but there is no clawback either. Refery holds the client's fee through the guarantee period and runs the replacement search directly, so nothing has been paid out to you and there is nothing to return. You are never involved in the replacement or in any dispute with the client. Your 24-month candidate protection on that person remains fully active for any other role they match with on the platform.

We handle all collection end-to-end, including late-fee enforcement written into every client agreement. Your payout is contingent on us collecting — but our agreements are enforceable and we have every incentive to collect (we don't earn a dime either until the client pays). In practice, collection on placed candidates is close to 100%.

Zero. No subscription, no platform fee, no membership, no tool costs. Refery makes its 30% share only when you place successfully. If you don't earn, we don't earn. That alignment is the foundation of how this works.

Two, both written into the partner agreement. (1) Company introductions — introduce a startup to Refery and, for 24 months from the confirmed introduction, you earn an additional 10% of the placement fee on every hire that closes there. This stacks: if you also submitted the placed candidate, you collect both. (2) Partner introductions — introduce a recruiter or scout who makes a qualified submission within 30 days, and you earn $1,000 per hire they close that clears the 90-day guarantee, up to $20,000 lifetime per person you introduce. Both bonuses follow the same 90-day hold and client-collection rules as your placement payouts.

Full platform access after signing the partner agreement. Browse every open role with complete context: company name, stage, funding history, product, salary band, must-haves, hiring timeline, and confirmed fee structure (either a fixed referral fee or 10–20% of first-year base). Filter by domain, level, and location.

Growing every week. Our 200+ VC-backed startups maintain a rolling pipeline of engineering and GTM roles — typically 50–100 active roles at any given moment, with 5–15 new roles launched per week as we onboard new clients.

Yes — confirmed partnership roles have signed agreements with clear fee structures. You'll also see roles marked "In Pipeline" — these are companies we're actively targeting or in discussions with. We display them so you can start identifying candidates proactively. When the partnership confirms, we match within 48 hours. Each role clearly shows its status and fee arrangement.

VC-backed startups from seed to Series B, primarily in SF (~80%), New York, and London. Backed by YC, Sequoia, a16z, Index Ventures, General Catalyst, Lightspeed, Founders Fund, Tiger Global, Greylock, and more. Salary bands typically $250–350K base on senior roles, with founding engineers and specialist leadership roles reaching higher.

Highest demand: AI/ML engineers, forward deployed engineers, staff and senior software engineers, founding engineers, and backend engineers (Go, Rust, Python). Also strong demand for product managers, enterprise AEs, account directors, and heads of growth. The list shifts weekly as new clients onboard.

These are companies we're actively targeting or in early discussions with. The role is real and the company is hiring, but partnership terms aren't confirmed yet. We show these so you can start identifying candidates proactively. Once the partnership is finalized, we can match your candidates within 48 hours — giving you a head start.

Through the platform or via email to your partner contact. Each submission includes: resume or CV, your verdict (1–2 paragraphs on why this candidate fits), the candidate's contact details, and context on their situation — comp expectations, availability, interview readiness, any relevant flags. A submission is "qualified" — and your 24-month candidate protection starts — only when all three are true: you've shared the CV, contact details, and a written assessment of fit; you've personally vetted the candidate or can speak to their fit from direct knowledge or a trusted warm intro; and Refery confirms and timestamps it on the platform. A name on its own, or a forwarded CV with no context, does not start your protection. By submitting, you confirm you have the candidate's permission to share their details with Refery and our client companies. To help with positioning, think through: What stage of startups are you most excited about, and why? Can you share the names of roles you're looking for? (e.g. founding engineer, backend engineer, Sr. ML/AI engineer, etc.) What locations are you open to? Are you open to relocate? If yes, which cities? What work setup do you prefer? (On-site / hybrid / remote / flexible — note that most roles we work on are on-site.) What base comp range are you targeting? When would you be available to start? Are there any industries you're especially excited about, or any you want to avoid?

Three things. (1) Personal endorsement — you know this person, or someone you deeply trust knows them. (2) Specific fit — why this candidate, for this role, right now. Not "strong engineer," but "built the exact system this company is building, shipped it at scale, left amicably." (3) Honest context — including any caveats. Resume-blast operators burn out in one cycle; curators build compounding careers here.

A Talent Committee member schedules a qualifying conversation with the candidate within 48 hours. If they pass the vetting, the candidate is matched across every relevant open role on the platform. You have full visibility into every stage — vetting outcome, match list, each client's response, interview progress, and offer status.

A rotating panel of investors, angels, operators, and founders who've built startups themselves. They spend 25–30 minutes with each candidate to understand background, motivations, fit, and communication style. Candidates who pass get significantly higher interview rates from hiring managers — the vetting signal is trusted across the network. It's designed to accelerate your results, not gate them.

Yes. You earn on every placement from your submission, regardless of which role your candidate ultimately lands in. Your 24-month candidate protection locks the attribution across every role on the platform during that window.

Our founders have asked us to keep role details confidential until candidates are vetted. Many have close relationships with us and want their opportunities shared only with carefully selected talent — protecting their employer brand and avoiding unsolicited outreach. The process: you identify promising candidates, they have a conversation with our Talent Committee, and once vetted, we share specific opportunities privately. If helpful for attracting talent beforehand, you can mention basics like stage, vertical (e.g. fintech), funding, and location — or simply introduce them to Lily, who knows the full landscape. This approach keeps founders happy and ensures your referrals get premium treatment.

When you submit a candidate, that attribution is locked to you for 24 months. For any role they get placed in on the Refery platform — at any company, in any city, at any stage — within that window, you earn the payout. No other partner can claim them. First submission wins, timestamped on the platform.

Absolutely. No exclusivity. No non-compete. No minimum activity. Work with other marketplaces, run your own book, keep direct clients — whatever the mix of your business. Three narrow restrictions apply, and they exist to protect the clients and candidates that make Refery work: (1) once one of your candidates is in an active process with a client, that placement runs through Refery — so no dual-submitting the same candidate to the same company through another channel; (2) while you're working a client's roles and for 12 months after, don't recruit that client's own employees into other Refery roles; (3) the 12-month non-circumvention on clients you discovered through Refery. Outside those specific pairings, your network stays entirely yours.

Pre-existing relationships are fully carved out. The non-circumvention clause (12 months) applies only to clients you discover through Refery. Your existing book is your book — Refery has no claim on relationships that predate your partnership with us. If a pre-existing relationship is disputed, we may ask for supporting evidence like prior invoices or email history.

Yes. Either party can end the partnership at any time, for any reason, with no notice required. Pending payouts survive termination — you still get paid on every candidate you submitted before stopping. Your 24-month candidate protection also survives for any in-pipeline placements.

Zero clawbacks, ever. Refery holds the client's fee through the 90-day guarantee period and only pays you out once it clears, so there is never money in your account that could be taken back. The only "no-payout" scenario is a hire whose employment ends before day 90. Once your payout lands, it's yours.

Operational terms can be updated with 30 days' notice. But your payout percentage and payment timing can never be changed without your written consent. That's in the agreement — your economics are protected.

We're in a transition phase — moving from a community-driven network to a professional platform. This means you're joining at an inflection point: early enough to shape the platform and build relationships, established enough to have 200+ companies and proven placements. Some legacy terms from our community phase remain, while new partnerships follow our standardized model.

Operators and investors with 9- and 10-figure exits, who've built companies from first hire to acquisition, and who've deployed capital into some of the most recognizable startups of the last decade. We've lived both sides of the hiring problem — the founder side, the fund side, and the operator side. Refery is what we built to fix it.

Three structural differences no one else has. (1) Talent Committee vetting by real investors and operators, which lifts interview rates significantly. (2) One candidate matched across every role continuously — not one shot, one role. (3) Independent recruiters + operator scouts combined in a single network, giving startups and partners a hybrid model that neither pure agencies nor pure marketplaces can match.

AI powers matching, vetting workflows, and platform logistics — it doesn't replace human judgment. Every candidate gets a real conversation with a Talent Committee member. Every match decision involves a human review. AI sits in the engine room; the judgment stays with us and with you.

We're professionalizing from a community model to standardized terms, and every client negotiates its own arrangement. Some roles carry a fixed referral fee (e.g. $10,000, $25,000, $50,000) from earlier agreements; new partnerships are percentage-based at 10–20% of first-year base salary. Every role displays its confirmed fee — you always know exactly what you'll earn before submitting candidates.