Recruiting the best AI engineers w/ Matt Cook of Scouut

Mar 9, 2026

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Has your hiring process kept up with the industry’s AI leaps, or are you still interviewing like it's 2022?

Today’s AI-driven landscape means the skill gap between a good engineer and a great one widens every day, and the great ones can be difficult to find. But how do you choose – and hire – the best in the business?

How do you find those elusive engineers who can skilfully handle multi-agent workflows, ship in hours what used to take weeks, and add an AI-focused competitive edge to your startup?

In this episode, Chris Saad and Yaniv Bernstein are joined by Matt Cook, an expert in hiring the best engineers in the business, and co-founder of Scouut – one of Australia's most respected engineering recruiters for early-stage startups.

Matt works with pre-seed through to Series C companies and has a front-row seat to how AI is reshaping what ‘great’ looks like in engineering, and how founders and hiring teams alike can keep pace.

They cover what's fundamentally changed in engineering hiring, what hasn't, and how to build a small, elite team that punches well above its weight.

In this episode, you will:

Understand why AI is widening the gap between great and average engineers
Discover the three questions to ask any Big Tech candidate to determine if they'll thrive in a startup
Find out why much more is expected of ‘senior’ engineers, and what that means for founders
Hear how the best startups are now testing for AI competency in interviews, not just coding ability
Learn why smaller teams, higher salaries, and generous token budgets are the new arbitrage for attracting elite engineers
Understand why you should be designing the role for the people you want, and making your AI-forward culture clearly visible

Resources mentioned in this episode

Scouut (Matt Cook's engineering recruitment firm for early-stage startups): https://scouut.com.au/
Matt Cook on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewmarkcook/
Loki (Australian startup referenced for their public AI-first hiring stance): https://www.itsloki.com/
Solid (lightweight vibe-coding tool mentioned by Chris): https://trysolid.com/

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