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✦Senior backend engineer near Berlin, Go and Kafka, ideally payments, has built a system other teams depend on.Search
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Judging every profile against your brief
Showing 10 candidates
LK
Lena K.

Staff Engineer · Payments platform

Berlin, Germany9 yrs experience

Strong

Why this match: Built the ledger service 14 teams depend on; Go and Kafka in production.

  1. Staff EngineerPayments platform3y 2m
  2. Senior Backend EngineerNeobank2y 8m
MD
Marco D.

Backend Engineer · Logistics marketplace

Potsdam, Germany7 yrs experience

Strong

Why this match: Go consumers on Kafka, 2M messages an hour, owns the event pipeline.

  1. Backend EngineerLogistics marketplace2y 11m
  2. Software EngineerTravel booking3y 1m
TW
Tom W.

Tech Lead · Online retail

Bernau, Germany11 yrs experience

Stretch

Possible match: Golang, led the order system rewrite. No Kafka on the profile.

  1. Tech LeadOnline retail1y 9m
  2. Senior EngineerOnline retail3y 4m
Mock example · people and companies are made up
01

The brief template

no-filter/brief-template.txt
[Level] [role] in or near [city], up to [commute or radius],
at the scope of [team size, budget, systems owned],
must have [must-have 1] and [must-have 2],
ideally [nice-to-have 1] or [nice-to-have 2],
someone who has [the thing you want to see in their work],
skip [who to leave out].
no-filter/filled-in.txt
Senior backend engineer in or near Berlin, up to an hour's commute,
at the scope of owning a service end to end,
must have Go and Kafka in production,
ideally payments or fintech,
someone who has built a system other teams depend on,
skip agencies and anyone who changed jobs in the last 12 months.
02

10 briefs for hard roles


    

  

  
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03

      
Run 200+ searches in parallel from Claude

      
    
        
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  2. Claude, Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector:
    https://app.thecognitive.io/mcp
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  3. Sign in
    4. 
      

      

        
no-filter/prompt.txt

        
Here is the role: [paste your brief]

Search The Cognitive for this role.
Run a separate search for every reasonable combination of:
- the titles this person might have today
- the skills, including other names for them
- the city, the towns around it and the cities I would accept
- the industries where this work happens
Use anything I said "ideally" about as extra searches, never as the only search.

Check every profile against my brief.
Treat each must-have as a hard requirement: anyone missing one is out.
Leave out everyone on my skip list. Remove duplicates.
Mark each person STRONG or STRETCH. STRETCH means every must-have is there
but something else is weak; say what.
For each person, quote one line from their profile for each must-have,
and tell me which search found them.
If you find fewer than 15 STRONG, tell me which must-have shrank the pool most
and what to loosen.

      

    

    

      

        
        

          
Backend, Berlin Example

          

            
Senior backend engineer near Berlin, Go and Kafka, ideally payments, has built a system other teams depend on. Run every combination and rank them.

            
Searched skillsGo · Golang · Kafka
Go · Golang · Go with Kafka · Kafka alone · gRPC

            
Searched placesBerlin · Potsdam · Oranienburg
Berlin · Potsdam · Oranienburg · Bernau · Brandenburg an der Havel

            
Searched titles and industries5 titles · 4 industries
Backend Engineer · Platform Engineer · Staff Engineer · Tech Lead · SRE
payments · fintech · banking · insurance · marketplaces

            
Ranked against your brief. Top 3:

              

                
LKStaff Engineer · payments · BerlinSTRONG"Built the ledger service 14 teams depend on." Found by: Go · Berlin · Staff Engineer · payments

                
MDBackend Engineer · logistics · PotsdamSTRONG"2M messages an hour, Go consumers on Kafka." Found by: Golang · Potsdam · Backend

                
RBSenior Developer · insurance · Brandenburg an der HavelSTRETCH"Kafka consumers for claims events." Found by: Kafka · Brandenburg an der Havel · insurance

              

            

          

          
Reply to Claude…

        

      

    

  






  
04
What you get back

  

    

      
#PersonVerdictLine from their profileFound by

      
        
1LKStaff Engineerpayments · BerlinSTRONG"Built the ledger service 14 teams depend on."Go · Berlin · Staff Engineer · payments

        
2MDBackend Engineerlogistics · PotsdamSTRONG"2M messages an hour, Go consumers on Kafka."Golang · Potsdam · Backend

        
3ASPlatform Engineerneobank · BerlinSTRONG"Go services on Kafka; owned the payments API every squad uses."Go · Berlin · Platform · banking

        
4TWTech Leadmarketplace · BerlinSTRETCH"Golang, led the order system rewrite."Golang · Berlin · Tech Lead · marketplaces

        
5RBSenior Developerinsurance · Brandenburg an der HavelSTRETCH"Kafka consumers for claims events."Kafka · Brandenburg an der Havel · insurance

      
    

  

  
Mock example · people and companies are made up






  

    
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