What are Baseline's fees?

Contingent search is 20% of first-year base salary. Off-market introductions are 17.5%, the preferential rate for clients with terms in place. Retained search is 25% with an engagement fee scoped to the role and deducted from the success fee.

What does working with Baseline look like?

It starts with the market, not a contract. On the first call we share what our market map shows for your role: pool size, compensation, who's hiring around you. If a search is worth running, we scope it then.

How is Baseline different from other recruiters?

Most recruiters start searching when you sign. Baseline maintains a daily market picture of US data center commissioning before any engagement, so you see evidence before you commit to anything.

What happens after a candidate reaches out?

A reply within two business days, then a short conversation off the record. Nothing is shared with anyone without the candidate's permission, including the fact a conversation took place.

Baseline · Data center commissioning, mapped.

01 — Hiring

You're building a team.

Commissioning engineers, managers, CxA professionals. We'll show you the market before we show you a resume.

Book a call →

02 — Moving

You're weighing a move.

A quiet, straight read of the market for your background. Nothing shared without your say-so.

Start a confidential conversation →

03 — Listening

You want the inside view.

Inside Commissioning: real conversations with the people shaping mission critical delivery.

Hear the podcast →

— What we keep hearing

The same stories, on every project.

“We need three Cx engineers and we needed them two months ago.”

“We made an offer and got outbid by a firm we'd never heard of.”

“Fifteen resumes. Not one had set foot on a data center site.”

None of these are unusual. The commissioning pool is small, demand is not, and most hiring still runs on partial information. The firms that struggle most are the ones operating blind.

— What we do

We map the market before we work it.

Hiring in a tight market starts with the landscape. Who's out there. What they're earning. Who's likely to move, and why. We maintain that picture every day, so an engagement starts from knowledge, not from a cold list.

Market view

We share what we see.

Clients get the same picture we hold: who's hiring, where salaries sit, which firms are growing and which are losing people. No surprises at offer stage.

We make considered introductions.

Every introduction follows a real conversation. We know what the person wants, what they're good at, and whether they'd stay, before you ever see a name.

Advisory

We help you plan ahead.

When you're bidding a project or opening an office, we'll tell you whether the talent exists to staff it, what it will cost, and how long it will realistically take.

— The Baseline map

A working map of the US commissioning market.

Our research team builds and maintains it daily: companies, people, live roles, compensation signals and movement patterns. It is built long before a search begins, not assembled after you call.

The same map informs every search we run and everything we publish.

Ask the map a question →

Companies

Operators, contractors, consultancies and specialist Cx firms. Mapped, tiered, kept current.

People

Engineers, managers and CxA professionals. Where they sit, what they've delivered, how they move.

Live roles

Open and recently closed positions across the market, tracked week by week.

Compensation

Salary, travel and benefits signals drawn from real conversations, not job-ad guesses.

Movement

Which firms are growing, which are losing people, and where demand builds next.

— Where we look

The talent pools your competitors aren't working.

Most firms fish the same small pond: experienced data center Cx engineers who already field three approaches a week. We watch that pool closely. We also map the adjacent industries where commissioning fundamentals carry over.

Pharma Power generation Semiconductors Oil & gas Marine & mission critical

Proven talent, more reachable.

Systems testing, integrated commissioning, quality verification, rigorous standards. The fundamentals translate. And because these people aren't being chased by every firm in the data center space, they're more reachable and often more open to a move. When the like-for-like pool is tapped out, the firms that win bring proven talent across.

Transferability, checked.

An adjacent resume only helps if the move works. Before we introduce someone making the jump, we've examined which skills carry over cleanly, where the genuine gaps are, and what it takes to get them productive on a data center program. You get people who can do the work, not resumes that look adjacent on paper.

See who's reachable for your role →

— For candidates

Your move, on your terms.

If you commission data centers for a living, your inbox is already noisy. We'd rather be the one conversation worth having, with a clear view of the market behind it.

01Nothing shared without permission. Your details stay with us until you say otherwise.
02No noise. We won't call you about roles that don't make sense for you.
03An honest read. What the market looks like for your background: demand, compensation, direction. You never start from zero.
04A route in. If you commission in pharma, power or semiconductors, we'll show you where your experience fits and what it pays.

— About

Why Baseline exists.

“Every commissioning firm was struggling to hire, and every recruiter they called was starting from scratch. Nobody held a clear picture of the market. I built Baseline to be the firm I wanted on the other side of the table. A firm that knows the market before you call, and treats every introduction like it matters.”

— Cal Blair, Founder

Cal

Founder & host

Fourteen years in recruitment across construction and technology, agency-side and in-house. Cal leads every client and candidate conversation himself, start to finish, and hosts Inside Commissioning.

Sam

Operations & intelligence

Sam runs Baseline's internal projects and manages the talent intelligence system, working closely with Lauren and Ronnie to keep the map current.

Lauren

Market research

Lauren works the data center commissioning market every day, tracking hiring, movers and the supply chain so the intelligence stays fresh and accurate.

Ronnie

Candidate research

Ronnie maps the people working in mission critical commissioning, and those who could move into it. Eight years in recruitment, previously with AWS.

— The podcast

Inside
Commissioning

by baseline

The commissioning world is full of people with remarkable careers and hard-won opinions, and very few places where those stories get told. This is one of them. Real conversations with the engineers, managers and leaders shaping mission critical delivery.

Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

Guests who've done the work.

If you've built a career in commissioning and have something to say about where the industry is heading, we'd like to hear it. No scripts, just a good conversation.

Put yourself forward →

— Common questions

Asked before most first calls.

What are your fees?+

Contingent searchYou brief us a role. You pay on the hire, not before. 20%

Off-market introductionWe bring you someone exceptional you weren't searching for. The preferential rate for clients with terms in place. 17.5%

Retained searchAn engagement fee scoped to the role, deducted from the success fee. 25%

All rates are a percentage of first-year base salary. Agreeing terms costs nothing and commits you to nothing. It means when we meet someone worth moving fast on, you're somewhere we can take them, at the lower rate.

What roles do you cover?+

Commissioning engineers across electrical, mechanical and controls, through to commissioning managers, CxA professionals, IST leads and senior delivery hires. If it sits inside data center commissioning, or one step adjacent to it, we work it.

What does working with you look like?+

It starts with the market, not a contract. On the first call we share what the map shows for your role: pool size, compensation, who's hiring around you. If we both think there's a search worth running, we scope it then.

How is this different from the recruiters who already call us?+

Most recruiters start searching when you sign. We maintain the market picture every day, before any engagement, so you see evidence before you commit to anything.

Which markets do you cover?+

The US data center market, coast to coast, with the deepest coverage in the major hubs: Northern Virginia, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, Columbus and the Pacific Northwest.

Can we access your market data directly?+

Not yet. The map currently powers our search work. We're scoping a standalone data service: compensation benchmarks, hiring movement and talent availability by market. Early conversations are shaping what we build, so if that's something you'd use, tell us what you'd want from it. Register interest →

I'm a candidate. What happens after I reach out?+

A reply within two business days, then a short conversation off the record. Nothing is shared with anyone without your permission, including the fact that we've spoken.