We place the people who build the technology your business runs on. Senior engineering, product, design, data, and leadership roles — across Canada.
Mass recruiters chase volume. We chase fit. Fewer roles at a time, deeper screening, and a better placement at the end of it.
Typical shortlist size per role. We send a small, considered slate — never a forwarded inbox.
Average time from kickoff brief to first qualified candidates landing on your desk.
Of placements still in seat 12 months after start. We’d rather lose the deal than break the team.
Senior individual contributor and leadership roles, screened by recruiters who’ve sat in your seat.
→Specialist search across engineering, product, design, data, and leadership — built on years of senior-network curation.
→Recruiting treated as craft — fewer roles at a time, deeper screening, and a better placement at the end of it.
→Senior individual contributors and engineering managers building real product.
Product leaders who pair sharp judgement with the patience to ship.
Designers and researchers who can carry an idea from sketch to shipped feature.
Modern stack engineering, governance, and the analysts who actually answer questions.
The people who set the technical direction and live with the trade-offs.
The senior leaders who set the culture as much as the roadmap.
From regulated giants to fast-growing software firms — we build relationships across the sectors where senior technology talent makes or breaks a year.
We sit with the hiring manager and the team to understand the actual problem — not just the JD that’s been forwarded around. Where is this role really stuck? What does success look like at month six?
We work a small, deliberate slate. No mass-mailing, no auto-forwarded LinkedIn pings. Most of our shortlists come from a network we’ve been quietly maintaining for years — talent that isn’t actively applying anywhere.
Every shortlisted candidate is interviewed by a senior consultant who has done the work. Resumes are the start of the conversation, not the end of it. You see written write-ups — not just ratings out of five.
We don’t oversell either side. If a candidate isn’t a fit, we say so. If the role has a real concern they should know about, we tell them. We’d rather lose a placement this quarter than spend the next two years cleaning up a bad one.
I built WeSpark on a quiet conviction: that the gap between a great hire and a costly mistake is almost always visible early — if someone takes the time to look. Most agencies don’t. The economics of volume recruiting won’t allow it.
So I made a different choice. We work with fewer clients than we could, on fewer roles than we could, and I screen every candidate myself. It’s slower. It’s also the only way I know how to do this work without quietly hating it.
We’re a small, women-led, Canadian studio — and we’re small on purpose. If you’re looking for a recruiter who will know your name, return your call within hours, and tell you the truth even when it costs us a placement, we’d like to meet you.
They sent us four candidates. We hired two. Three years later, both are still leading critical work. That’s the math that matters.
Recruitment, when it’s done well, is mostly invisible. The right candidate just shows up — calmly, on time, well-prepared, with the right context already in their head about your team and the role.
Getting there is slower than you think. We spend hours per candidate before they ever speak to a client — reading their work, understanding their motivations, calibrating against the actual problem. Most of what we do never makes it into the shortlist. That’s the point.
See our method →Modernising a multi-tenant platform. Looking for hands-on technical leadership and the kind of judgement that scales a team without slowing it down.
Pre-IPO health AI scaling its product org. Two finalists currently progressing — soft pipeline still welcomed for adjacent senior PM roles.
Seed-stage with strong founder-design DNA. Need a lead who can run craft — and translate it into a hiring plan for the next year.
For mid- and senior-level technologists. CV is helpful but not required for a first conversation. We never share your details with a client without your written approval.
Tell us the gap, the team, and the messy parts. We’ll come back within one business day to set up a calibration call — no obligation, no fee for the conversation.
No. Never. Our service is paid for by the employer when a candidate is successfully placed. There is no cost to a candidate at any point in the process — including consultations, interview prep, or offer negotiation support.
No. We treat every candidate conversation as confidential by default. We never share your CV, your name, or even confirm we’re speaking with you, until you’ve given us explicit written approval to put you forward for a specific role.
No. WeSpark is a women-led studio — the firm is run by women — but our placements are not restricted to any one demographic. We place strong senior tech talent, full stop. As a women-led firm, we have particularly strong reach into networks of women and underrepresented technologists, and we work with employers who care about inclusive hiring.
The big agencies optimise for volume — hundreds of recruiters, thousands of roles, fast match-and-forward. That works at scale, but it doesn’t work as well for senior technology roles where fit, context, and a long-term match matter more than speed.
We work fewer roles, screen candidates ourselves, and stay close to both sides of the placement for at least a year after start. The trade-off is honest: we’re not the right partner if you need a hundred resumes by Friday. We are the right partner if you need one good hire who’ll still be there in three years.
Mid- to senior-level technologists, typically 6+ years of experience. Most of our placements are at the senior individual contributor, lead, or first-line management level. We also place director-level and head-of-function roles when there’s alignment with one of our practice areas.
We work nationally. Most active searches are based in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Vancouver, with a meaningful share of remote and hybrid roles open to candidates anywhere in Canada. We’re headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta.
From kickoff brief to first qualified shortlist, we average 14 days. From first shortlist to signed offer, most permanent placements close within 4–6 weeks. Contract placements typically move faster — often within 2 weeks. Senior leadership and director-level searches can run longer; we’ll set realistic timelines at the calibration call.
For new searches, role briefs, and partnership conversations.
Mid- to senior-level technologists. CV not required for a first chat.
Press, partnerships, and "I just have a question."
Edmonton, Alberta · Canada.
