Five years of growth — and a management team that never had to run a hiring process.
🔧 Industry: Embedded software & electronics engineering
🔗 Client: itdev.co.uk
📋 Model: Flex
ITDev has been designing and delivering software and electronics engineering projects from Southampton Science Park since 2000. Their work spans embedded software, FPGA and digital hardware design, and precision systems engineering — with projects reaching into broadcast infrastructure, defence, and platform technology. They are director-owned, privately financed, and built on long-term client relationships, some running for over a decade.
They were the first company to work with Cohort. More than five years later, they still do.
At ITDev, hiring had always fallen to the management team. Technical leaders would take on searches alongside their client work — reviewing applications, running processes, arranging interviews — without dedicated resource, consistent process, or much enthusiasm for it.
Bruce Mitchell, Managing Director, describes the result directly: "The hiring process was led by our management team — taking them away from their main tasks. The managers didn't enjoy doing it, and this meant the process was inefficient and time-consuming."
Cohort took over the process end-to-end on the Flex model — a retained, ongoing relationship rather than a per-hire arrangement. Over five years, ITDev has grown from a team of around 20 to around 45 people. We've hired across the full range of their needs: graduates entering the engineering profession for the first time, experienced embedded software and FPGA engineers, an office manager, and contractors covering specialist requirements outside their usual profile — including an ASP.NET developer brought in for a specific project.
The senior team now appears at one point in the process: the final interview, where technical depth and team fit are assessed. Everything before that is handled by Cohort.
Alongside the process, we've helped ITDev develop their employer brand — with a particular focus on professional development, which is a genuine and long-standing commitment at the company. Making that visible and credible to candidates, especially at graduate level, means the right people self-select in and arrive with an accurate picture of what working there looks like.
We also keep them current on the broader talent market: what's in demand, what salaries are doing, and where the pressure points are likely to be.
"Cohort have taken management of the hiring process off our hands so our senior team can now just focus on the final interviews, making sure the shortlisted candidates have the right technical skills and personality to fit into our team.