XOR AI Pods for high performing AI teams
Elite AI and RL engineers, on demand.
We help AI labs and product teams staff reinforcement learning, LLM and data engineers who integrate into your stack and ship real systems.
55 hired recently
Trusted by high growth AI teams and research labs.
Curated from the OpenDataScience community of 65,000+ professionals.
What XOR does for AI companies
XOR helps AI labs and product teams quickly add proven engineers to their roadmap. You get people who already build with LLMs, RL and modern data stacks and who join your existing workflows, not a separate agency team.
Build and extend your AI engineering team with full-time contractors
Run technical evaluation workflows for your own hiring
Spin up AI pods that own clear outcomes like RAG upgrades or agent reliability
Roles we staff
LLM and agent engineers
Reinforcement learning and environment engineers
Machine learning and research engineers
Data and platform engineers
RAG, search and evaluation specialists
AI safety, red teaming and reliability experts
All engineers are screened for real-world work: repos, evaluations, and a task or take-home aligned to your stack.
Engagement models
Individual contractors
Add one senior or mid-level engineer to your team. They join your rituals, ship against your backlog and communicate in your channels. Ideal when you need capacity fast or want to try a profile before a full-time hire.
AI Pods in a box
2-5 experts who own a scoped outcome, for example:
- • RAG quality upgrade or evaluation rewrite
- • Agent reliability and tool use debugging
- • Safety hardening and red teaming
- • LLM environment design and benchmarking
Why teams choose XOR
Hands-on vetting
We review portfolios, run technical conversations and use live or take-home work samples tied to your stack and problem space.
Speed without chaos
You get 3-5 vetted profiles in about 72 hours, with notes, example work and an honest view of trade-offs.
Cost aligned to value
No free weekly pilots that burn time. Trials are paid and tightly scoped, so you see real work and engineers are compensated fairly.
Flexible scale
Start with one contractor. If it's a good match, extend the contract or grow into a pod. If not, we replace quickly.
Clean paper
XOR handles contracts, NDAs, IP assignment and time tracking. When needed, we can support EOR in key geos through partners.
How it works
Brief
Share your goals, stack, time zone and success metrics. We align on whether you need individuals, a pod, or an evaluation workflow.
Shortlist in 72 hours
We send 3-5 vetted profiles with notes, rates and example work.
Paid trial
You pick one or more candidates for a short paid trial or small scoped project. Typical length is one to two weeks with clear deliverables.
Scale or hire
If the match is good, you extend the contract, grow into a pod or move toward a full-time hire on your paper. If not, we replace at no additional fee in the first 14 days.
Pricing
Contractors
Most senior global engineers fall between $80-$160 per hour. Specialized US or EU-based experts can be higher. You pay only for time worked and agreed scope.
Pods
Fixed monthly scopes starting around $35k per month for a small pod, depending on composition and goals.
No retainers required. No unpaid pilots. Trials are scoped so you see results without waste.
What we stand behind
Replacement at no additional fee in the first 14 days if fit or delivery clearly misses the brief
Weekly updates during trials, including what shipped, what changed and what is next
Clear communication on rates, scope and expectations from day one
What our customers say
"It has been a pleasure working with XOR. The team is very hands-on and responsive, and the quality of the candidates has been consistently strong."
Ning Cao
Founder, Stealth AI-startup
Ready to meet your next AI engineer?
Send us a short brief and we'll start matching within one business day.