We needed extra AI engineers to keep our ambitious project running.
- Hours for perfect match
- 24
- Senior engineers
- 4
- Hr interview before the final hiring decision
- 1
The startup on a mission to energy and AI abundance
Building AI for nuclear — one of the world’s most heavily regulated industries — requires exceptional talent. The Everstar.ai team already includes nuclear domain experts and engineers from SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Microsoft, and Lockheed Martin.
But their ambitions outpaced their headcount.
Everstar.ai builds AI systems that turn weeks of nuclear licensing work into days. The U.S. Department of Energy tested their Gordian AI solution and compressed a 4–6 week document process into a single day. To keep producing high-performing products for such high-stakes clients, Everstar.ai needed more qualified full-stack engineers.
Despite being understaffed, the company was operating without an internal HR or recruiting function and needed a fast path to qualified talent that matches their high standards. The choice fell on Lemon.io, a provider of pre-vetted senior engineers with proven production-first experience.
The need for extra hands
The team looked for autonomous senior engineers with 3–8 years of commercial experience owning the entire AI lifecycle end-to-end. Candidates needed to:
- Build and deploy production-grade AI systems rather than focus solely on prompt engineering
- Quickly absorb and consolidate information across AI, physics, and nuclear domains
- Show genuine interest in solving difficult real-world math problems
For Mike Lukiman, Founding Senior Software Engineer at Everstar.ai, technical skills were only part of the equation. As AI-generated resumes and interview answers become overly common, identifying engineers with legit experience has become harder.
Mike wasn’t looking for polished responses like those from a textbook. He wanted to work with self-motivated people who could follow and support complex technical conversations, explain how they approach real-world technical problems, and demonstrate interest in the company’s mission.
Making sure developers care about what they’re doing — beyond competency — is still a hard problem. Lemon.io was able to provide such developers.
Where the magic happens
After a short discovery call, Lemon.io took over the time-consuming part of the hiring process: sourcing, screening, and vetting candidates.
Mike shared the technical requirements, experience level, and personal qualities he was looking for. In return, he received a shortlist of engineers who closely matched both the role and Everstar’s fast startup culture.
Instead of spending weeks filtering applications and conducting preliminary interviews, Mike could focus entirely on evaluating engineering judgment and team fit during a single 2-hour call.
With their entire team working on-site, Everstar.ai brought on 4 remote senior engineers within Lemon.io, their first remote hires ever.
On a final call, we were estimating the “raw force power” of engineers. We explained our stack, infrastructure, and goals to see how they tracked the conversation and how fast they understood the new context.
Divine devs that get things done
Daniel is a senior full-stack/middle DevOps engineer with a strong product mindset, experience building and scaling SaaS platforms end-to-end, and production AI exposure. He enjoys working on technically challenging projects involving backend systems, data-heavy applications, and polished user experiences, especially early-stage or growth-phase products where he can own features from architecture through launch. Our technical interviewer recommends Daniel as a strong backend-focused engineer with solid infrastructure knowledge and excellent communication skills.
Alp is a senior full-stack engineer with over 10 years of experience, specializing in Python and React. He has independently built and shipped SaaS and AI-integrated products, demonstrating strong ownership, practical AI integration, and solid architectural skills. He has a builder mindset, with particular strength in back-end and system design. Alp has led teams and delivered solutions across compliance, data intelligence, geospatial systems, and AI-enabled products.
Danilo is a senior full-stack engineer with over 8 years of commercial experience, specializing in React, Node.js, AWS, and PostgreSQL. He has led teams and delivered complex solutions in logistics, healthcare, and e-commerce, with hands-on expertise in microservices, REST/gRPC APIs, and AI integrations. Feedback highlights his strong technical skills, reliability, and excellent team fit. Communication is fluent and collaborative, with proven experience in both technical leadership and individual contribution.
Juan Patricio is a senior AI Engineer and AI Agent Architect with verified expertise in Python, LLMs, RAG, LangChain, vector databases, MLOps, PyTorch, prompt engineering, and Hugging Face. He has designed and shipped production-grade multi-agent systems, demonstrating strong ownership, pragmatic architectural decisions, and robust security practices.
Patrick is a product-oriented Senior Full-Stack engineer with 6 years of professional experience and prior experience as a cofounder and tech lead of a startup. Proficient in Python/FastAPI, React/Next.js, React Native, and AWS (EC2, ECS, Fargate), he excels in system design and building scalable backend and frontend solutions. He demonstrates solid knowledge of AWS scalability, data pipelines, and fault-tolerant architectures, including presigned URLs, multipart uploads, batching, and sharding. He has a natural curiosity and passion to technologies as started to develop at his fourteen.
Robert is a senior engineer with 13 years of experience, specializing in AI agent orchestration, LLM evaluation, and distributed systems architecture. He has demonstrated strong design skills in context retrieval, hybrid search, and production observability, with hands-on expertise in Python, Go, and related backend technologies. His strengths include independent system design, clear technical reasoning, and effective stakeholder communication. His architectural and AI engineering capabilities are rated at a senior level.
Jakub is a full-stack developer with extensive experience working with Node.js, React.js, Typescript, and Next.js. He has up-to-date knowledge of technologies, a positive attitude, and the skill to ask the right questions, making him a valuable developer for any project. Jakub has extensive experience in the Fintech domain and is ready to work in healthtech, education, or gaming. With a strong passion for education and technology, he has led a variety of international projects and mentored interns and junior developers.
Sergii is a Senior Software Engineer with 21+ years of experience in software development, delivering scalable, high-performance systems and complex product features across startups and enterprises like Wix. Highly skilled in full-stack development, with deep expertise in React, Node.js, and TypeScript, combined with strong abilities in architecture design, performance optimization, and CI/CD automation. Adept at bridging frontend and backend to quickly and reliably ship robust solutions, while mentoring teams and contributing to product strategy.
Hrittik is a Senior Full-Stack Engineer with strong expertise in Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS, and scalable cloud architectures, along with solid experience in React and Next.js. He has led both technical initiatives and teams, working across monolithic, microservice, and serverless architectures to deliver stable, high-performing systems. With a product-oriented mindset, he focuses on incremental delivery, clear expectations, and solutions that align closely with product and business needs. He also brings practical experience with AI-driven platforms and holds a post-graduate certificate in Applied Machine Learning and AI.
Why choose us
We're looking for the right developers, that perfectly suit your team
A four-step vetting process
Our proprietary process includes professional and personal tests, live interviews, and multiple background checks.
Price-quality match
The majority of developers are from Eastern Europe, where startups can stretch their budget to do more with less.
Miraculous 48-hour matching
Two days (or less) to find you a perfect developer for your startup's needs.
98% satisfaction rate
That's the percentage of clients who hired the very first dev they were offered from the platform.
Zero-risk dev replacement
You don't wait for direction. You jump in headfirst, racking up quick wins, calling out improvements, and pushing for architectural decisions that set clients up for scale.
Full-time contributors
You're looking for work you can sink your teeth into, and can commit 20 hours or more a week to see it through.
Case studies More case studies
Nutrition
We get potential candidates who are perfectly aligned with what we’re looking for, every time.
Fitness
For non-technical founder engineering is a black box. I’ve learned how important it is to have someone in my corner who can really be a partner to me. Lemon has really shown up. They weren’t just a matching tool. They really understood what I was looking for and found me someone I could trust.
Rocket hiring ride
Top-notch developers within 48 hours, hand-picked for your team.
