We don’t hire consultants. We recruit builders who weaponise AI.
Most professional services firms sell hours.
We sell autonomous systems that recover tens of millions, cut compliance cost by half, and make entire finance and IT teams 10× more valuable — then keep compounding value long after we leave.
That only happens when every person on the team can design, train, deploy, and productionise frontier AI in the messiest real-world environments.
If you’ve spent the last decade moving PowerPoint and managing offshore bodies, this is not your place.
If you’ve built reinforcement-learning cash agents that auto-execute $28 million in working-capital decisions, fine-tuned LLMs that draft 99.2 % accurate 10-K footnotes, or stood up UEBA platforms that collapse threat dwell time from 180 days to under four, keep reading.
Who thrives here
- Former Big 4 who are done pretending sample-based testing is acceptable in 2025
- Ex-FAANG / ex-Palantir / ex-Two-Sigma engineers who want their models to touch real P&L
- Finance leaders (CFOs, Controllers, Treasurers) who have already cut their teams 40–60 % using autonomous agents
- Tax partners who know transfer-pricing audits are now a solved problem
- Cybersecurity leaders who measure success in hours, not years
What you’ll actually do
- Week 1–2: Run an AI Discovery Sprint that finds $20–$80 million in hidden cash or risk for a new client
- Week 3–10: Build and productionise the autonomous systems (continuous audit bots, predictive close engines, vendor-recovery agents, self-healing ERP layers) that capture it permanently
- Month 4+: Own the compounding ROI curve as your systems get smarter every day
- Write the unfiltered Insights pieces that make CFOs cancel their Big 4 retainers the same week they read them
- Mentor the next wave of builders who think traditional consulting is already dead
Compensation & reality check
- Top-quartile base for your level (we pay London / NY rates globally)
- Performance bonus that actually moves the needle (six figures is normal, seven happens)
- Direct equity in the autonomous systems you create — because when they generate $420 million incremental revenue for a client, you deserve to participate
- Unlimited PTO is a myth. We do 4-day intensive client weeks followed by 3-day build weeks. Most people choose to work five because the problems are addictive.
- Remote-first, but you will be on planes. The best data lives in client data centres.
Why people join and why they stay
“I left a Big 4 partnership because I was tired of selling fear and 400-page roadmaps. At StartDate I ship production AI that recovers more cash in a quarter than my old practice made in a year.”
— Principal, joined 2024
“In nine months I’ve cut three finance teams by 50 % and made the remaining people 10× more strategic. I now get messages from strangers saying my Insights piece made them cancel their Deloitte retainer.”
— Director, ex-Controller Fortune 100
How to apply
Send one email to careers@consulting.startdate.co
Subject line: [Role you want] – [Your single biggest AI war story in ≤12 words]
Body:
- Link to the production system / case study / GitHub / write-up you are most proud of
- The single hardest finance, tax, compliance, or ops problem you’ve solved with AI
- Why traditional consulting is already dead
No CV. No cover letter. No recruiters.
We will reply within 48 hours if we see the builder DNA we need.
If you have to ask about work-life balance, this isn’t for you.
If you’re tired of watching the future happen somewhere else, we should talk.
StartDate Consulting – We build the systems that make the old way impossible.