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Success Stories

Supporting a US expansion with Product & Engineering Talent

  • B2B SaaS
  • Established

The Challenge

Heywood is a Manchester-based SaaS business providing technology solutions to the pensions industry.

Having partnered with the business since 2021, Burns Sheehan has supported hiring across Engineering, Product, DevOps, UX and Cyber Security.

In 2025, Heywood expanded into the US market. A successful tender win created immediate demand across Product and Engineering as the team balanced new client onboarding, product adaptation, and the development of new SaaS capabilities.

Working alongside the People team and Engineering leadership, we were engaged to hire:

  • 2 Principal Engineers
  • 2 Senior Engineers
  • Mid-Level Engineers
  • A Senior Product Owner
  • Strategic Product Managers

Like many businesses in specialist sectors, Heywood isn't a household name in the Manchester tech market. Attracting the right engineers wasn't about brand recognition. It was about telling a compelling story around the technical challenges, culture, autonomy, and opportunity to make an impact.

The hiring demand also increased quickly. The business needed to scale at pace without lowering the bar or creating unnecessary pressure on internal stakeholders.

The Solution

Having worked with Heywood for several years, we already had strong relationships across the People team and Engineering function. In fact, a number of the hiring managers involved in this project had originally been placed by Burns Sheehan.

That existing knowledge meant we could move quickly. We understood what good looked like, the type of people who tend to succeed in the business, and how to position the opportunity to engineers who weren't actively looking.

Joe worked closely with the Head of People, Senior People Manager, and technical leaders throughout the hiring process, providing market insight, salary benchmarking, and guidance on hiring expectations as demand increased.

Rather than relying on volume, the focus was on delivering highly targeted shortlists. Every candidate needed the technical capability to do the job and the mindset to thrive in a growing SaaS business.

"We've worked with Joe and the Burns Sheehan team for around five years and he feels like an extension of our People team. He's reliable, easy to speak to, always honest, and consistently delivers on what he says he will."

 

Charlotte Woodward, People Partner

The Results

Key Outcomes

  • 8 hires delivered in 4 months
  • 19-day average time to fill
  • 2.75:1 CV-to-interview ratio
  • 40% interview-to-hire ratio
  • 25% female representation across hires
  • 36 hires delivered since 2021

As Heywood expanded into the US market, the business needed to increase hiring without compromising on quality. By combining long-term knowledge of the organisation with access to relevant passive talent, Burns Sheehan helped the team make critical Product and Engineering hires quickly, allowing leadership to stay focused on growth and delivery.

36
hires delivered since 2021
19
day average time to fill
25
%
female representation across hires in latest project
Industry

B2B SaaS

Location

Manchester

Company stage of growth

Established

Get in touch

Speak to an Account Manager to see how we can find you the right talent for your team.

Joe O'Sullivan

Joe O'Sullivan

Associate Director, Head of Backend Engineering - Manchester

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