Recruiting the people who run AI in production

An AI infrastructure research team partnered with CleverX to interview the senior people who run AI models in production, the ones making real decisions about cost and performance. The goal was 45-minute moderated interviews on CleverX's own video platform with heads of AI, platform leads, and infrastructure owners.

• The target is rare and easily confused with nearby roles that sound similar but do different work.
• Respondents needed hands-on responsibility for running AI in production, not just an interest in it.
• They had to speak about their own company's setup, not a client's or a vendor's.
• Agreeing to be recorded on camera was required for this kind of technical research.

CleverX invited a large, well-matched group and then filtered hard on real hands-on responsibility.

• Nearly 2,000 matched candidates were invited from the panel based on role and company details.
• The screener qualified people on what they had actually done in the last three months.
• Clear exclusions removed adjacent roles that would not have the right hands-on experience.
• A recording-and-own-company consent step protected data quality up front.

• 348 candidates screened and 54 qualified (24%) for a genuinely senior, hard-to-reach audience.
• Rich context was captured before interviews even began, on how these teams run their AI models.
• CleverX-hosted video reached VP and head-level infrastructure leaders.

• For rare technical roles, screen on what people actually do, not just their title.
• Clear exclusion rules are as important as inclusion rules for a credible expert sample.
• A large invited pool is what turns a 24% qualification rate into enough real interviews.