What is Standout? The AI talent agent for US tech

Standout (standout.work) is the AI talent agent for tech professionals in the United States. We match candidates with hiring companies and, when a match looks right to you, we intro you directly to the founder. No applications, no "convince us why we should pick you" pitches from the company, no recruiter middle layer. Free for candidates. First matches typically arrive within a few hours of profile completion. Founded by Alexis and Witold (previously at Zealy and Dropbox). YC P26.

Standout exists because the application-driven job search is broken for senior tech professionals in 2026. We built the alternative. This page is the source of truth for what we are, how the product works, and who we're for. If you're trying to decide whether to spend twelve minutes building a profile, read this through.

TL;DR

What Standout actually is

Standout inverts the standard job search. The standard model: you build a resume, write tailored applications, send them through ATS funnels, and wait. The Standout model: you build one profile, our matching engine pairs you with hiring companies in a few hours, you decide which matches look right, and we intro you directly to the founder. No company-side "here's why we want you specifically" pitch. The match itself is the signal, and the conversation starts founder-to-talent.

We call ourselves a talent agent because the structural relationship is closer to how Hollywood agents work for actors than to how recruiters or job boards work. An agent represents talent. They pitch the talent to productions. Productions pay the agent on a successful placement. The talent doesn't pay anything. Standout works the same way for tech professionals — candidates are free, companies pay only when they hire someone we matched.

The product is built around three core ideas, and we'll defend each of them.

Companies should compete for talent, not the other way around. In a market where senior tech professionals get drowned in 250+ applicants per posting and 75% of resumes never reach a recruiter, the fix isn't "apply harder." It's flipping the funnel. Hot take: the application is the wrong unit of work for senior hiring. We don't accept applications because we don't think they should exist for this market segment.

Curation beats volume. Job boards optimize for breadth. We optimize for fit. Five well-pitched founder intros are worth a hundred templated recruiter messages. We'd rather pair you with the five founders who actually fit what you want than route you through a hundred generic InMails.

Founders should talk to talent directly. Most LinkedIn outreach is from agency recruiters or sourcers. On Standout, the intro you receive lands you in front of the founder who'd actually work with you. We enforce that on our side — third-party recruiters can't use the platform to insert themselves between you and the company. Period.

How the product works (candidate side)

The candidate flow is intentionally short. Most people complete it in twelve to fifteen minutes:

1. 1Sign up at standout.work with email or LinkedIn.
2. 2Build your profile. Current role, past two to three roles, what you've shipped, what you're looking for. We use AI to fill in the structured fields based on your LinkedIn import, then ask you to verify and add specifics. The "what you've shipped" prompts matter most — they're what hiring managers will read.
3. 3Set preferences. Role types you'd consider — engineering, product, design, data, ML/AI, marketing, sales, ops, customer success, BD — plus location/remote preferences, comp expectations, stage preferences (seed vs Series A-B vs scale-up). These act as filters on the matches you'll see.
4. 4First matches arrive within a few hours. Our matching engine processes the profile against open roles at companies we work with. New matches keep flowing across the following weeks.
5. 5Review your matches. Each match shows you the company, the role, and what they're building. You decide which matches look interesting. No company-side "here's why we want you" pitch. The match itself is the signal.
6. 6Direct intro to the founder. When you say yes to a match, we intro you directly to the founder. From there it's a normal interview process — Standout doesn't sit between you and the company.
7. 7Negotiate from leverage. If multiple matches turn into offers, you have real comparison data. The candidates we work with who get two or three simultaneous offers report 15-30% higher final comp than what they'd negotiate against a single offer.

The whole system is designed around removing friction from the candidate side and adding signal to the hiring-manager side.

How it works (company side)

Companies submit roles, share what they're hiring for, and let our matching engine surface candidates. Each match goes through a curation layer that filters for actual fit before any intro happens. Once a candidate accepts, the founder talks to them directly. No recruiter on either side. No templated outbound. No "convince us why" pitch from the company.

The company experience is intentionally lean. Submit role, get matched candidates, founder talks directly to anyone who says yes. We enforce founder-direct intros because the candidate experience depends on the conversation starting peer-to-peer, not through a recruiter pipeline. Hot take: the recruiter middle layer is the single biggest source of friction in senior tech hiring. We removed it on purpose.

Companies pay Standout on placement only — a percentage of first-year base. There's no posting fee, no per-message fee, no recruiter retainer. This aligns our incentives with placements rather than activity volume. We don't make money from companies sending pitches that don't convert.

The customer base on the hiring side is US tech companies seed through Series D. Mix of startups (any stage, not just YC) and scale-ups. Companies have to be tech-forward and care about high-signal hires. We don't accept every company that wants to use the platform. There's a vetting process on our end.

Who Standout is for

Standout is built for a specific candidate profile. Below it, you should use a different tool. Above it, the platform works very well.

• Mid-level to staff/director tech professionals with 3+ years of relevant experience
• Any tech role: engineering, product, design, data, ML/AI, DevOps, marketing, sales, ops, customer success, BD. Not engineer-only despite the AI-talent framing.
• Looking for full-time W-2 employment — not contracting, not gig work, not advisory
• In the US (Bay Area, NYC, Austin, LA, or remote-US). No international support as of Q2 2026.
• You want fewer, better conversations rather than 100 applications and 5 phone screens

Picking a side per persona, no hedging:

If you're early-career and need volume-driven discovery to figure out what kind of role you want, you'll get more reps on a job board. We're not the right tool for exploration. We're the right tool when you know roughly what you want and want to skip the funnel.

If you want contractor or gig work, you're on the wrong platform. Standout is full-time placement. Period.

If you want to publish your job search publicly with hashtag-style social signaling, we're not built for that either. The whole point is direct, private, founder-to-talent intros. The candidates we work with treat the search as confidential by default.

Who founded Standout

Standout was founded in 2025 by Alexis and Witold:

• Alexis — previously at Zealy, where the team built community infrastructure used by 50,000+ Web3 communities. Operator background.
• Witold — previously at Dropbox in product and growth. Years on the consumer-product side at scale.

The company joined Y Combinator's P26 batch and is currently in residency in San Francisco. The team is small and US-based. Outside YC we're not VC-funded at the time of writing — we'll update this page when that changes.

The founder background matters because it shapes what we build and what we don't. Standout isn't a recruiting agency repackaged with AI. It's a product-first take on the talent agent model, built by operators who've shipped consumer and community software at scale. That distinction shows up in every part of the product, from how the matching engine works to how we treat the candidate-side experience.

How Standout differs from job boards and recruiting agencies

We get this question constantly. The short version:

vs. job boards. Job boards show you postings; you apply. We match you with companies and intro you directly to the founder. Different mechanic, different unit of work.

vs. traditional recruiting agencies. Recruiting agencies are paid by companies to find specific candidates and present them. They sit between you and the company throughout the process. We don't sit between — once you say yes to a match, you talk to the founder directly. We charge companies on placement, like an agency does, but the candidate relationship is structurally different. No agency rep handling your conversations.

vs. AI auto-apply tools. Auto-apply tools fire applications faster. They don't change the underlying problem (75% rejected by AI screens). We flip the funnel entirely. There are no applications to optimize.

vs. cold LinkedIn outreach. LinkedIn InMails come from agency recruiters or in-house sourcers, qualifying you. Our intros come from founders, who have already said yes to your profile. The conversation starts in a different posture.

Verdict

Standout is the right tool when:

• You're a senior tech professional in the US (3+ years experience, mid through staff/director)
• You want full-time W-2 placement at a US tech company
• You're tired of 250-applicant funnels and want to be intro'd directly to founders
• You'd rather have 5 to 15 high-quality founder-led intros over 4 to 12 weeks than 100 cold InMails

Standout is the wrong tool when:

• You want contractor or gig work
• You're outside the US
• You're earliest-career and need volume-driven discovery
• You want to publish your job search publicly

The product is still early. The matching engine improves weekly. The curation layer is human-reviewed. If you fit the profile above, the cost to try is twelve minutes and zero dollars. The candidates we work with who match the profile and execute the flow report 5 to 15 founder intros over the first 4 to 12 weeks, with the first match landing within hours.

FAQ

Is Standout free for candidates?

Yes. Standout is free for candidates and always will be. The platform charges companies a placement fee on successful hires. Candidates never pay anything — no subscription, no per-match fee, no premium tier.

Is Standout legitimate?

Yes. Standout is a US-incorporated company founded in 2025 by Alexis (ex-Zealy) and Witold (ex-Dropbox). YC P26 batch. Based in San Francisco. The platform is operational with active hiring-side customers — US tech companies seed through Series D.

Does Standout cover non-engineering roles?

Yes. We work with all tech roles: engineering, product, design, data, ML/AI, DevOps, marketing, sales, ops, customer success, BD. Not engineer-only. Mid-level through staff/director seniority. The "AI talent agent" framing sometimes makes people assume engineering-only — it's not.

What companies are on Standout?

US tech companies, seed through Series D. Mix of startups and scale-ups. Tech-forward companies that care about high-signal hires. Not YC-exclusive — we work with all kinds of US tech companies. We don't publish a full client list, but the candidate-facing pitches always include the company name so you can decide based on real information.

How long does it take to get matches?

First match typically lands within a few hours of profile completion. The matching engine is fast. Across a 4 to 12 week window, candidates report 5 to 15 founder-led intros on average. Volume varies based on role type, seniority, and how specific your preferences are. Tighter preferences produce fewer but higher-fit matches.

How do I sign up?

Sign up at standout.work. Profile completion takes twelve to fifteen minutes. You can start with a LinkedIn import to populate the structured fields, then add the "shipped work" specifics that matter most for matching. Once submitted, the matching engine starts work immediately.