How UpLabs Staffs Zero-to-One Ventures with Engineers Who Think Like Founders

AI talent is the scarcest commodity in tech right now, hard to find and harder to keep. Yet UPLabs, a venture studio building startups with the world's largest companies, has filled some of its toughest roles: AI agentic engineers, ML engineers, the positions everyone is fighting over. The difference wasn't a bigger recruiting budget. It was Remotely, a hiring partner whose values matched their own, and here's how that made it possible.

82 engineers and specialists placed across UPLabs and its ventures in under two years, 11 of them in the scarcest roles in tech: AI, ML, and agentic engineering.

About UpLabs

UpLabs is a venture studio that partners with major corporations including Porsche and Alaska Airlines to build new startups around high‑stakes operational challenges. Rather than solving those problems through internal innovation programs alone, UpLabs turns them into venture opportunities and brings new companies to market through its startup‑building model. The result is a technically demanding environment shaped by enterprise infrastructure, emerging technology, and zero‑to‑one execution. 

Leaders across studio, product, and data include Rob Patrick, CTO & Head of AI Studio; Tyler Watson, Venture Head of Product; and Kieran Smith, Venture Head of Data, and all three rely on Remotely to build teams that are AI‑native and comfortable working on frontier technologies inside complex enterprise environments.

Why UpLabs Partnered with Remotely

For Rob Patrick, a lifelong software builder and a former software services founder himself, the decision started with values rather than rates.

"Remotely's values are very much aligned with ours, and that was a big reason why we chose to partner with them. The values that Remotely has internally for everybody we've worked with also go through to everybody they hire. The engineers, the data scientists, everybody we work with has the same startup mindset and gets excited about the same things we get excited about. Having that value alignment was a big reason why we partnered with Remotely, and I think why it's been successful to date."— Rob Patrick, CTO & Head of AI Studio

Because UpLabs runs an unusual business model, the partnership had to be built rather than bought off the shelf.

"When we started this whole thing with Remotely, we just got on the whiteboard and said, 'How do we do this together?' I said, 'Here are the things we want to do. How do you guys work?' We really worked as a true partnership to bring all those ideas together, and we met each other in the middle."— Rob Patrick

The Challenge

UpLabs hires against a bar that has shifted fast. The rules for interviewing and the skills the studio looks for have changed, and the new priority is AI-native talent that can solve complex problems and default to action.

"We heavily value people that take initiative. We want that startup mentality. We have a lot of autonomy here, so we want people who are going to make their own decisions and charge forward and default to action. We get to choose what technology we use, so we're always picking frontier technologies, and we oftentimes get to be the first one to use something out of the gate."— Rob Patrick

That bar collides with a hard market reality: AI talent is scarce, difficult to recruit, and difficult to retain. And for Tyler Watson, who has built technology in enterprise settings for 14 years, the deeper risk with remote teams was never raw skill. It was a disconnection.

"Some of the challenges with remote teams is this feeling of disconnection, where maybe you're working with a team of engineers in Eastern Europe through one project manager. You're writing long requirements documents, but there's not really a day-to-day interface, and you're not even sure if these people really understand the business you're building."— Tyler Watson, Venture Head of Product at UpLabs

The Head of Data, with roughly 20 years in the field, had seen a related pattern: remote teams with real technical skills but a narrow mindset that stalled the moment a problem stopped being a straight line.

"Some issues I've had in the past working with remote teams from other parts of the world is they can have the technical skills, but their mindset is very limited in how to use those skills. If it's not just a straightforward one, two, three, they may struggle on how to get to the next step."— Kieran Smith, Venture Head of Data at UpLabs

The Solution

Remotely consistently brought the caliber of people UpLabs needed, even for the roles that are hardest to fill. For Rob, effective technical recruiting starts with culture.

"The quality of engineers we've gotten from Remotely has been really great. Technical recruiting is so difficult. For me it starts with culture matching, and that's something Remotely has done very well from the beginning. They've been able to consistently bring great people to the table, and we've been pretty effective in filling our open roles for some of the most difficult positions, like AI agentic engineers and ML engineers."— Rob Patrick

The match got sharper through collaboration. The data team worked with Remotely to define exactly the intersection of skills a venture needed, building shared frameworks to guide the search.

"We collaborated really well with the Remotely team. We were looking for this intersection of skills, so we developed frameworks like a capability matrix that shows we need more of this skill, less of that skill in a particular profile. They were really able to hone in on the talent we needed and produce great results. It's been a testament to the partnership. Successful collaboration would be the one word I'd use."— Kieran Smith

Just as important, the talent already in place proved adaptable enough to grow into the AI-native work as the bar moved.

"AI talent is a scarce commodity, very hard to recruit and retain. But we were happy to find that a lot of the people we'd already hired had the core principles and understanding that we could upskill them into AI-native work, and they were very excited to do it. A lot of them started doing it without me even asking. That's the kind of mentality we want."— Rob Patrick

The Engineers in Practice

Once the teams were in place, the difference showed up in how they worked. Tyler's engineers, primarily from Mexico and Brazil, are at the cutting edge of AI and use it to move at a pace he had not seen before.

"The number one thing on my list with engineers is whether they're staying at the cutting edge of AI and deploying it in their day-to-day work. The team I work with through Remotely is right there. Compared to engineering experiences I've had in the past, they are 10x more efficient and more effective at pull requests, getting stuff done, and problem-solving using AI. They even push our domestic team by using AI to its fullest extent."— Tyler Watson

The disconnection he feared with remote teams never materialized. The relationship reads as in-person, not offshore.

"Our team members are with us every step of the journey. I have a direct relationship with them daily. I know about their families, they know about mine. These are people I would be friends with. It's essentially equivalent to working with a really high-powered engineer in person domestically. It's the same vibe, and the team I'm working with now is one of my favorite teams I've ever worked with."— Tyler Watson

What ties it together, across all three leaders, is ownership. The engineers behave like founders, not contractors.

"These guys approach building technology like entrepreneurs. In many cases I would hire them to go start my own startup, because they put everything into it and take a lot of ownership in what we're building. They're not passive bystanders in the backseat on this journey. They're really helping drive."— Tyler Watson

For the Head of Data, the standout quality is creativity layered on top of technical depth, and the communication skill it takes to work in a second language.

"When it comes to technology, one part is being able to technically solve problems. But once you have a technical understanding, then there's creativity. It's almost like being a painter: you have to know how to mix colors and do the brush strokes, but after that it's what can you put on the canvas? The Remotely professionals combine great technical skill with a healthy creativity at problem-solving, and they're great communicators. It's not easy to communicate in a second language, and that can be taken for granted."— Kieran Smith

What Makes Remotely Different

Rob has founded a development shop and worked with many partners over the years. Two things stand out to him. The first is transparency.

"There have been many situations where Remotely could have done something perfectly fine that was in their best interest but maybe not in ours, and they'll flag it and say, 'Hey, did you think about this?' I see that all the time. They have our best interest and our partnership at heart. That's something you can't just get. It comes over time, through transparency and trust."— Rob Patrick

The second is the breadth of support behind a small internal team, from performance and cultural management to travel logistics across Latin America.

"Our talent team and operations team here is very small, so they have to do a lot. Remotely is a key partner in that. There isn't anything we say, 'Oh, we couldn't go to Remotely to get help with this.' The ability to call up Remotely for anything we need really allows us to play bigger than we are, which I like."— Rob Patrick

Looking Ahead

For the Head of Data, the model works on both sides of the border. It gives UpLabs great talent at a cost that lets a lean studio move fast, and it lets professionals build strong careers without leaving home.

"Remotely is an amazing partner to find great professional talent that gives you high quality outcomes, with a strong commitment to getting to a shared outcome. The model leverages the currency difference across borders: it provides our professionals a great quality of life in their home country, and it allows us to be more cost-efficient here in the States while getting great talent."— Kieran Smith

Across studio, product, and data, the throughline is the same. UpLabs did not hire a vendor. It gained a partner embedded closely enough that the work simply gets done together.

Key Results

100% of completed searches filled. Every search UPLabs ran to completion with Remotely ended in a hire, including the AI, ML, and agentic roles most companies can't staff at all.

Nearly 6x growth in the active engineering team in under two years, built with Remotely and still expanding.

10x more efficient than any team he'd worked with before, says UPLabs' Head of Product, crediting the AI-native engineers Remotely brought on.