SM2 Dev is a US development firm that builds and maintains web platforms and cross-platform mobile apps for businesses, agencies, enterprises and life sciences companies. Its projects range from marketing sites and customer portals to dashboards and AI-driven applications, and the firm supports many of those platforms long after launch.
Dan Graham founded SM2 Dev in 2004 in upstate New York. The team has since grown into a group of experienced engineers who work remotely across the country. When the firm needed another senior engineer, Dan, now its CEO, led the search.
A senior engineer for TypeScript, Python and AI work
The role called for a senior engineer who works primarily in TypeScript and Python and has deep experience building with AI. The work would span many kinds of client projects, from advanced websites to demanding features on enterprise and startup platforms.
That range is what made the search hard. An agency engineer moves between codebases and clients, so the right hire needed senior judgment as well as the right stack. The AI requirement was just as specific. A résumé that lists a model or a library shows little, so the search had to find engineers who had actually built and shipped AI-driven features.
Why earlier agencies had not worked
SM2 Dev had tried other agencies before. They were not transparent about how they worked, and the expectations they set with candidates did not hold up. None of them produced an engineer strong enough who then accepted the offer and started.
Dan also knew SM2 Dev did not have the recruiting tools or the internal team to run a senior engineering search on its own. He wanted a firm that specializes in software engineering recruiting and can find senior engineers, and his research led him to TekRecruiter.
Three to four candidates, one week after the first call
Dan’s first call was with Ron Smith, TekRecruiter’s founder. They covered the TypeScript, Python and AI depth the role needed and the variety of client work the engineer would take on. Ron then committed to three to four candidates within a week.
TekRecruiter screens senior engineers on the products they have built, not only the technologies they list. Candidates walk through how a product works, the features they owned, the architecture decisions behind them and how they turned requirements into a release. For a role built around client work, that conversation showed who could find the real problem behind a request.
The shortlist arrived on schedule. Every candidate on it had also heard an accurate picture of the role and the firm before meeting SM2 Dev, which was the transparency the earlier agencies had not provided.
A direct hire who is still on the team
SM2 Dev interviewed the candidates and made a direct hire from that first shortlist in April 2026.
The engineer is still at SM2 Dev and adds value for the company, the team and its clients. For a small firm, that meant senior capacity without a second search and without lowering the bar for who joins.
