Talent & Recruitment

You're in . Your team is in Nigeria. We're the part in between.

Build a Nigerian team without an entity, without the admin, and without flying home to manage it. We recruit the people, run the paperwork and payments, and — if you want — lead the team until it can lead itself.

Placement at 7.5% of annual pay · administration from $35 per contractor / month

Trusted by the founders of
2,000+
Candidates evaluated
40+
Placements made
90%+
Still in seat at 12 months
3
Replacements ever requested
30%
Of clients return

Seven services. Pick the ones you need.

Hiring and running a team is seven distinct jobs. Some clients want all seven. Some want us to find one person and get out of the way. The model is the same either way — you buy segments, not packages.

01
Define
Role scoping, org structure, pay bands
02
Source
Outreach into our vetted pool
03
Screen
Structured evaluation at volume
04
Select
Panels, interviews, ranked shortlist
05
Place
Offer, onboarding, kickoff
06
Administer
Contracts, payments, records, renewals
07
Lead
We run the team until it runs itself

Select a scenario to see which segments it covers.

Three services. Take one, two, or all three.

Placement is universal — everyone buys it. Administration and Leadership are optional layers on top, depending on how much of the machinery you want to touch.

NGN shown at a fixed reference rate of ₦1,400 to $1.
Everyone
Placement
Find, vet, place
7.5%
of annual compensation · per hire · one-time

One role or twelve, the rate is the same. We define the role, source, screen, run selection, and place.

  • Role definition and candidate profile
  • Sourcing from our vetted pool
  • Structured screening and assessment
  • Ranked shortlist with written reasoning
  • Offer coordination and onboarding
  • Replacement guarantee included
Charged once, on successful placement. No retainer, no fee if we don't place.
Administration
We run the paperwork
$35
per contractor / month

You own the work. We own the engagement infrastructure — so you never touch a Nigerian bank transfer or a contractor agreement.

  • Contractor agreements and KYC
  • Monthly payment administration
  • Payment records and reconciliation
  • Contract renewals and amendments
  • Timesheets where applicable
  • Offboarding and close-out
Genuine independent-contractor engagements, structured and legally reviewed. Not an EOR.
Leadership
We run the team
$700
per month · fixed 3-month tenure
Limited availability

For founders who aren't technical, or don't have the hours. We take ownership of the team for three months and hand back a unit that runs itself.

  • Named engagement lead owns the outcome
  • Backed by our architecture and product specialists
  • Sprint planning, standups, unblocking
  • Weekly written reporting to you
  • An internal team lead developed for handover
  • 30 days advisory after handover
Three months, then we step back. Renewable, but designed so you don't need to.
What a team costs to pay
$1,800
5-person team / month
$2,300
6-person team with mobile / month

This is paid to your contractors, not to us. It's here so you know what a Nigerian product team actually costs before you start. Our fees are the three above, and they're separate.

Worked example — 5-person team, first three months, everything included
Contractor pay5 people, 3 months — paid to them
To contractors
$5,400
Placement7.5% of annual compensation, one-time
To Cyzygy
$1,620
Administration$35 × 5 contractors × 3 months
To Cyzygy
$525
Leadership$700 × 3 months, full tenure
To Cyzygy
$2,100
Cyzygy fees, first quarterEverything we charge, all three services
Total
$4,245

After month three, Leadership ends and Administration continues at $175/month for five contractors. Placement is never charged again for the same hire.

One note on all of the above

These are our standard rates, published so you can budget before you ever speak to us. They aren't the end of the conversation. Volume changes the maths — ten roles doesn't cost ten times one — and so do longer terms, unusual scopes, and engagements that combine all three services. Tell us the shape of what you need and we'll quote it properly.

Three months to a team that runs itself.

A newly assembled team of strangers isn't a team yet. We take ownership of it, establish how it works, and grow an internal lead from inside it — so that when we step back, nothing falls over.

Engagement lead · full three months
Owns the outcome
  • Sprint planning and prioritisation
  • Daily standups and unblocking
  • Sequencing the roadmap against your commercial goals
  • Weekly written stakeholder reporting
  • Single escalation point — one person to call
  • Identifying and developing the internal lead
Architecture · on cadence
Keeps the build sound
  • Technical architecture and stack decisions
  • Infrastructure, environments, deployment strategy
  • Code review standards and cadence
  • Technical debt calls — fix now or defer
  • Security and data-handling review
Product, design & QA · on cadence
Keeps it shippable
  • Scope definition and acceptance criteria
  • Design and UX review against spec
  • QA process and test coverage expectations
  • Release readiness sign-off
The deliverable
Handover, not dependency
  • Internal lead identified in month one
  • Developed across months two and three
  • Documented practices, decision log, architecture notes
  • Structured handover with you present
  • 30 days advisory after we step back
We've done this twice already. At RollaPay, the backend engineer we placed became the team lead. At PartyRA, it was the frontend engineer. Different people, different products — same outcome. The team keeps going after we leave.
If the hire doesn't work out, we replace them.

Performance, availability, or conduct — if a placement isn't working, we source a replacement at no additional placement fee. The guarantee runs for the length of your engagement, up to twelve months, and we stay on for support across that period so problems surface early instead of at exit.

3
Replacements requested in 40+ placements
90%+
Still in seat at 12 months
2,000+
Evaluated to find those 40

Brief to build, in four steps.

Shortlists typically land in 2–4 weeks, faster when the brief demands it. Most engagements go from first call to accepted offer in under a month.

01
Intake
We learn the roles, the goals, and the timeline — and tell you which of the three services you actually need.
02
Assembly
We source and screen against a structured framework, then put a ranked shortlist in front of you with reasoning attached.
03
Kickoff
Offers, contracts, KYC, payment setup. If we're leading, the engagement lead is in place from day one.
04
Run or hand over
Administration continues for as long as you want it. Leadership ends at three months with a team that can carry itself.

40+ placements across 13 organisations and 10 sectors.

From a federal agency's AI unit to two-person startup teams. The model scales in both directions.

The things people ask before they book.

If yours isn't here, ask it on the call — we'd rather answer it properly than guess at it in writing.

What exactly is the 7.5% calculated on?

The contractor's gross annual compensation for the role — monthly rate × 12. If you engage someone at $360 a month, their annual compensation is $4,320 and our placement fee is $324. It's charged once, when they start. We never charge it twice for the same hire, including when we replace someone under the guarantee.

Is the pricing negotiable?

Yes. Published rates are our standard for typical engagements, and they're published so you can budget before you speak to us. Volume, longer terms, and combining services all change the maths — ten roles doesn't cost ten times one. Tell us the shape of what you need and we'll quote it properly.

What happens if the person doesn't work out?

We source a replacement at no additional placement fee. It covers performance, availability, and conduct, and it runs for the length of your engagement up to twelve months. In 40+ placements it has been invoked three times — which is the number we'd rather you judge us on than the promise itself.

Do you employ the contractors? Are you an Employer of Record?

No. We are not an EOR and we do not employ the people we place with you. What we provide is the administrative infrastructure around a genuine independent-contractor relationship between you and them — agreements, KYC, payments, records, renewals, offboarding.

That distinction matters. You direct the work; we run the paperwork. If a proposed arrangement looks substantially like employment rather than an independent engagement, we'll tell you so rather than paper over it.

I'm not in Nigeria. How do payments actually work?

You fund us in your currency, we reconcile, the contractor is paid in naira, and you get a record of every payment. You never open a Nigerian bank relationship, never make a local transfer, and never chase a payment query. FX and processing costs are set out in the engagement agreement rather than buried in a margin.

Can I hire someone permanently later?

Yes, and there's no conversion fee. Once the placement fee is paid, the relationship is yours. If you later want to employ someone directly through your own entity, we'll help structure the transition and simply stop administering that engagement.

What's the difference between Administration and Leadership?

Administration is paperwork — contracts, payments, records, renewals. It doesn't touch the work itself and runs for as long as you want it.

Leadership is the work — someone from Cyzygy takes ownership of the team's output for three months: sprint planning, standups, architecture decisions, weekly reporting to you. It ends by design, with an internal lead developed from within your team to carry it forward.

Who is the engagement lead, and can I meet them first?

Named before you commit, and yes — you meet them before anything is signed. They own the outcome for the full three months and are backed by our architecture and product specialists on a set cadence. Leadership availability is limited precisely because we won't put someone on it we wouldn't vouch for personally.

What happens when the three months end?

We hand over to a lead we've developed from inside your team, with documented working practices, a decision log, and architecture notes — then stay available for 30 days of advisory. It's renewable, but it's designed so you don't need to renew. That's happened twice: at RollaPay the backend engineer took over, at PartyRA it was the frontend engineer.

How long does it take to get a shortlist?

Two to four weeks typically, faster when the brief demands it — we've filled emergency roles in days by drawing on an already-vetted pool. Most engagements go from first call to accepted offer inside a month.

Do you only recruit engineers?

No. Engineering is the bulk of it, but we've placed designers, QA, product managers, B2B sales, social media managers, video editors, data analysts, and community moderators — and sat on a federal agency's panel for AI leadership roles. If the role can be defined and assessed, we can run a search for it.

What if I only need one person?

That's a normal engagement, not a consolation prize. Several of our longest client relationships started with a single role and stayed that way — WePrototype has come back repeatedly for individual hires. Same rate, same process, same guarantee.

Why Nigeria?

Because the talent is genuinely strong, the cost base is a fraction of what the same skills cost in the US, UK, or Canada, and — if you're Nigerian and living abroad — you already know the market well enough to trust it. What most diaspora founders don't want is to run payroll, contracts, and day-to-day management from six time zones away. That's the part we take.

Tell us what you're missing.

Book a free 30-minute call. We'll work out which of the three services you need — and if it's just one, we'll tell you that.

Book a free call →
Talent is where most clients start. It's rarely where they stop.

Recruitment is one line in a wider practice. Cyzygy rebuilds how companies operate — so once a team is in seat, the same people who hired it can audit the workflows around it, automate what shouldn't be manual, and build the systems it runs on. That's part of why 30% of our clients come back for something else.

Workflow audits & policy designMap how work actually moves, then redesign it
AI & automationTake the manual steps off your new team's plate
Software developmentBuild the systems the team runs on
Data analyticsTurn operational data into decisions
Consulting & advisoryTech roadmapping and digital transformation
Industry playbooksFinTech, HealthTech, EduTech, gaming and more
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