TECHNICAL SCREENING
Expert Technical Screening for Data Hires
Know whether a data candidate can actually do the job — before you make the offer.
A bad data hire costs you months of salary, a stalled roadmap, and a search you have to run all over again. We run deep, hands-on technical screens — conducted by people who place data engineers and data scientists for a living — and hand back a clear, evidence-backed verdict your team can trust.
Our technical recruiters know what it takes to match the right talent with the right opportunities. We leverage our deep understanding of analytics and thorough technical screening process to ensure only the best candidates come your way.
30%+
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates a bad hire costs at least 30% of the employee’s first-year salary — and far more for specialized roles like data engineering.
What is technical screening as a service?
Technical screening as a service is when an outside expert evaluates a job candidate’s real technical ability on your behalf and hands back a clear, evidence-backed hire or no-hire recommendation. Dataspace screens data engineers, data scientists, analysts, and AI engineers — roles a non-technical HR team can’t reliably assess and a busy engineering lead doesn’t have time to deep-screen. You send us the candidate and the role; we tell you whether they can actually do the job.
Why can’t HR screen data candidates on their own?
Most companies hire data roles without a technical recruiter. HR sources the resumes and passes them to an engineering or analytics lead for review. But HR isn’t equipped to judge technical depth, and your technical people don’t have the hours to deep-screen every applicant.
The result is predictable: strong candidates stall in a slow process and take other offers, weak candidates reach final rounds, and every so often a bad hire slips through — costing months of salary, a re-run of the entire search, and work someone now has to unwind. Generic coding tests don’t fix this. They tell you whether someone can solve a puzzle, not whether they understand data modeling, pipeline design, experimentation, or the tools they listed on their resume.
What do you get from a screen?
- A structured scorecard rating the candidate across the competencies that matter for the specific role.
- A clear hire / no-hire / borderline recommendation, with the reasoning behind it.
- Evidence and notes — what they got right, where they were shaky, and the questions that revealed it.
- The full interview evidence — a transcript so your team can review the screen for itself .
Turnaround is typically 2-3 business days.
Can we review the actual interview?
Yes. The recommendation is ours to make, but the evidence behind it is yours to see. Every screen comes with the verdict; you choose how much of the underlying material you want alongside it.
- Scorecard and recommendation — always. The structured assessment and our clear hire / no-hire / borderline call, with the reasoning, comes with every screen.
- Full transcript — standard. A complete, searchable transcript of the session, so a hiring manager can skim straight to the part they care about instead of re-interviewing.
The scorecard and recommendation are the product; the transcript is there to back them up and save your team time.
Which roles do you screen?
We focus exclusively on data roles, so we know what real proficiency sounds like at every level:
How does the screening process work?
UNDERSTAND
SCREEN
DECIDE
Why use Dataspace instead of a coding-test platform?
Domain depth
We screen data roles specifically. We know the difference between someone who’s run dbt and Spark in production and someone who’s only read about them.
Neutral by design
We don’t place these candidates, so we have no incentive to push anyone through. You get an honest assessment, not a sales pitch.
AI-answer detection
We’re built to spot the difference between genuine technical experience and AI-polished responses — a growing problem that generic, automated screens miss entirely.
Fast and low-friction
No long-term platform contract or minimum volume. Use us per-hire or on a monthly retainer.
Trusted by teams that hire data talent
How much does technical screening cost?
Each screen costs $450, and introductory discounts are available. If you hire data roles frequently, ask about our monthly retainer for predictable cost and priority turnaround.
Because we screen rather than place, we don’t take a placement fee — so our assessment stays neutral, and your cost stays predictable.
Frequently asked questions
Stop guessing on data hires
One bad data hire erases the savings from skipping a screen many times over. Send us a candidate and a role, and we’ll show you exactly what a Dataspace screen can do for you.