Hiring FDEs the right way — in the United States.

FDE Jobs is an equal-opportunity placement agency. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40+), disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state or local law. This applies to every part of the engineer journey — sourcing, screening, AI interview scoring, match presentation, and feedback to clients.

Our AI screening rubric is restricted to job-relevant signals: technical depth, customer-facing judgment, ambiguity tolerance, ownership, and communication. Hiring decisions remain with the client company.

When a client requires a background check, it runs through an FCRA-compliant consumer reporting agency. Before any report is pulled we obtain the engineer's written consent, provide a clear, standalone disclosure, and — if the report leads to an adverse decision — follow the FCRA two-step adverse-action process so the engineer can review and dispute the report.

We respect state and local "ban the box" and fair-chance hiring laws (e.g. California, New York City, Illinois, Washington), so criminal-history questions are not asked before a conditional offer, and convictions are evaluated individually for job relevance.

We comply with state pay-transparency requirements. Engineer day-rate or salary ranges are surfaced on every applicable role, including for postings or matches reaching candidates or employees in:

• California — pay-scale disclosure on covered listings.
• Colorado — Equal Pay for Equal Work Act compensation ranges.
• New York State & New York City — good-faith pay ranges.
• Washington — wage scale and benefits disclosure.
• Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota — and other states as they take effect.

Engineer profiles are private by default. Real names, contact information, and exact employer history are masked from companies until the engineer accepts an introduction. We collect only what we need to match and place, retain it only as long as required, and never sell engineer data.

California residents have the right to know, delete, correct, and limit use of their personal information under CCPA/CPRA, and similar rights apply under Colorado (CPA), Connecticut (CTDPA), Virginia (VCDPA), Utah (UCPA), and other state privacy laws. Engineers can exercise these rights from My Data.

Misclassifying engineers is one of the biggest legal risks in technical staffing. We decide engagement structure up-front, document it, and price each model honestly.

We use the IRS Common-Law test, the ABC test (where applicable, including California AB-5/Borello carve-outs), and DOL economic-reality factors when scoping any 1099 engagement to make sure the worker actually qualifies as independent.

Every engineer in our pool tells us their US work-authorization status before they are ever matched. At offer stage the employer-of-record completes Form I-9 (and, where applicable, E-Verify). We track the following categories:

• US Citizen
• Lawful Permanent Resident (Green Card)
• H-1B (sponsorship may be transferred)
• L-1 (intra-company transferee)
• O-1 (extraordinary ability)
• E-3 (Australian specialty occupation)
• TN (USMCA — Canada / Mexico)
• STEM OPT / EAD
• CPT (current students)
• Other / needs sponsorship

We also capture whether the engineer needs sponsorship today and whether they will need it within 24 months, so we only present them to roles where sponsorship is actually on the table. C2C engagements have additional rules — the engineer's corporation must be able to lawfully employ them under their visa status, which we verify before placement.