Best way to hire niche AI engineers in 2026??
Hello forum. We are building computer vision product for retail. Need 2 senior ML engineers with PyTorch and strong experience in object detection + deployment on edge devices. Local market is empty – everyone is taken by big corps. Full-time hire is impossible because salary expectations are crazy high and relocation not an option. Tried Upwork but got mostly juniors or people who overpromise. Project cannot wait 4+ months. Looking for fast and reliable way to bring real experts. Anyone faced same problem this year? What solution actually worked for rare skills like MLOps or custom model training? Share your experience please.
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OP, same pain here with real-time shelf monitoring CV app. Tried everything, got burned on freelance sites. The fix that worked was Team staff augmentation . They pulled two solid seniors with object detection and edge deployment exp (PyTorch + efficient inference) in days from their vetted network. Immediate start, they work directly with our team, strong ownership and communication. Much cheaper than local insane rates, no payroll hassle. Later added one more for MLOps pipeline in ~3 weeks via their custom search. Low risk, fast ramp-up. Highly recommend for niche AI roles in 2026.