AI-Native Recruiting.
Forward Deployed Recruiters.

Agencies charge 20-25% of salary ($36K-50K per engineering hire), operate as a black box, use their own voice to pitch candidates, and have misaligned incentives. Lateral is ~30x cheaper. You get full visibility into your pipeline, all outreach uses your voice and brand, and our AI engine sources at a scale no agency can match. Your FDR provides the human context and judgment — but you see everything and control the process.

Pure AI tools are good at the top of the funnel — finding names, pulling data, sending sequences. But AI alone can't tell you a candidate would be a culture fit. It can't understand why your last hire didn't work out. Lateral pairs AI sourcing at scale with a Forward Deployed Recruiter who provides the human context, judgment, and candidate relationship management that AI can't. You get volume and signal.

Our AI engine sources candidates across 20+ channels simultaneously, enriches every candidate with research and fit signals, runs A/B experiments on messaging and targeting, generates personalized outreach in your voice, and learns from every campaign. It operates at a scale no human team could match — your FDR then reviews, calibrates, and manages the pipeline that comes out.

We average 3-5 business days to delivering interested candidates. Week 1 is onboarding and initial outreach experiments — your FDR learns your culture, tech stack, and hiring bar while the AI engine begins sourcing. By week 2, you're typically reviewing interested candidates. We test multiple messaging approaches and channels simultaneously to find what works fastest.

Your FDR delivers a qualified pipeline of interested candidates ready for your interviews — sourcing, enrichment, outreach, pipeline management, and weekly strategy sessions. You handle interviews, evaluation, hiring decisions, offers, and negotiations. Think of it as: we fill the top of your funnel with signal, you run the process from first conversation to close.

You can — and many founders try. AI resume parsing and sourcing tools are cheap and getting better. The problem isn't finding names. It's everything after: crafting outreach that doesn't sound like spam, running experiments across channels, managing follow-ups at scale, understanding why candidates ghost, and calibrating your search based on real market signal. That's the FDR's job. The AI gets you volume; the FDR turns volume into a qualified pipeline. Most founders who try DIY find they're spending 10-15 hours a week on work that isn't their core job.

Yes. We work with startups from seed through growth stage. Our model is especially effective for companies that need to hire fast but can't justify $50K agency fees or don't have an in-house recruiting function yet. The AI engine gives you enterprise-grade sourcing capability, and your FDR gives you a recruiting partner who knows your business — without the overhead of a full-time hire.