Hire engineers from your network

Every engineer you know, ranked and asked.

Even a no tells you who they’d hire.

Download RiverHow to start

How it works.

River finds every engineer you know across LinkedIn, GitHub and your mail, ranks them by how well you know them and who may be ready to move, and drafts a short personal note to each.

  1. Describe the engineer you need

    Prefilled from your job post and codebase, with a salary and equity range if you want to share one.

  2. River lists everyone you know

    Connections, past colleagues, classmates and people who contributed to your code, one row each.

  3. Asks that lead to intros

    Coffee, would you join, and which engineers would you hire. Every name they suggest becomes a new row.

What you get.

  • An Engineers I know Sheet of 20 to 50 real people, ranked by tie and openness
  • Personal notes from your Gmail to the top ten, sent on your yes
  • Every suggested engineer tracked, with a note to forward for the intro
The finished result of Hire engineers from your network in River

Start in three steps.

  1. River’s app icon

    Get River

    Download the app for your computer.

  2. River’s first question, “What’s your role?”, with Founder chosen

    Sign up as a founder

    When River asks your role, choose Founder.

  3. Start “Hire engineers from your network”

    Press + in your Dock, open Playbooks, and press Start. River prefills the role from your job post and asks whether to share the range.

A few things to know.

Why email instead of LinkedIn messages?

Email beats LinkedIn messages, which mostly go ignored. River finds people on LinkedIn and writes from your Gmail, using a LinkedIn message only when there’s no address.

What if they aren’t looking?

Ask them anyway: every strong engineer goes on the list, and openness only sets the order. Each note also asks which engineers they’d most want to hire, so a no still moves you forward.

What does it cost?

It uses your plan’s AI credit, like everything else in River. There’s no recruiter fee, since the people come from your own network.

View pricing

More for founders.

All founder playbooks

Try it on your own work.

Download River, choose Founder, and press Start on “Hire engineers from your network”.

Download RiverSee every playbook