Dimitrios Drougas

About Dimitrios Drougas

I am a Co-Founder and Head of Client Partnerships at a boutique search firm focused exclusively on engineers accountable for production AI systems at BFSI-facing vendors operating in regulated environments.I partner with founders, Heads of Engineering, and delivery leaders operating in regulated environments where role ambiguity, weak execution, and generic recruiting create outsized risk. My focus is on role clarity, search discipline, and aggressive qualification to ensure hires can design, deploy, integrate, and operate AI systems in production from day one.I do not run high-volume searches or compete on speed alone. I work selectively with teams where precision matters more than volume.The engineers I work with are typically accountable for production AI systems deployed into real customer or enterprise environments, or for the platforms that support them, including complex integrations, deployments, and ongoing reliability under real-world constraints.My role is to ensure alignment on expectations before anyone enters a process, including scope, success criteria, and operating reality. Engineers are evaluated on actual production accountability and execution capability, not keyword matching, and are never positioned into roles that do not match their experience.Before recruiting, I spent over two decades building and operating founder-led businesses. That background shaped a strong bias toward accountability, direct communication, and operational rigor.Jane Michael AI Talent Search was built as a partnership between deep technical judgment and disciplined client execution. We focus on a narrow set of roles and markets because breadth creates noise, and noise breaks trust on both sides of the search.I work directly with founders and senior engineering leaders to define role boundaries clearly, identify real execution risks before hiring begins, and run structured, transparent searches with enforced process discipline.More about me.Family man, father, husband for 20 years. Brazilian jiu jitsu and judo brown belt. Gamer and game creator. Relationship and spiritual coaching experience. Travel enthusiast and adventurer. Business entrepreneur and people person. Feel free to connect for reasons outside of my business here, but let me know if you do.

Experience

1. Co-founder

   Jane Michael Ai Talent Search

   Oct 2025 — Present

   I lead Jane Michael AI Talent Search, partnering with companies building and operating production-grade AI systems sold into BFSI environments.I work with AI-native vendors where AI is on the critical path of the product, and where system failures carry real operational, regulatory, or commercial consequences.I partner directly with founders, executives, and senior engineering leaders to define hiring success based on production accountability, not titles, forcing explicit clarity on failure ownership, real-world deployment, and long-term operation under regulated constraints.I work across the full hiring lifecycle, from discovery and role framing through candidate evaluation and offer support, with a strong emphasis on decision quality and scope discipline.Candidate assessment goes beyond resumes. I focus on engineers who have owned AI systems in production, can articulate real constraints (security, audit, latency, cost), and have been accountable for outcomes when systems degraded or broke.

Education

• Nassua Community College

  Associate of Arts and Sciences - AAS, Business/Commerce, General

  2002 — 2004