1. Decide who you're looking for
- Small startup (under about 50 people): a founder or the CTO.
- Larger startup: the engineering manager or tech lead of the hiring team. The job post often names the team.
- Large company: an engineer at your level on that team, who can refer you.
- If you can't find the team: a technical recruiter at the company.
2. Find their name
- The job post itself: some list the hiring manager or say "you'll report to".
- LinkedIn: search the company, filter people by title ("engineering manager", "tech lead") and location.
- The company's team or about page, engineering blog and conference talks.
- GitHub: the company's organisation lists people who commit to its open-source code.
- Funding news for startups: articles name the founders and sometimes the CTO.
3. Find or work out the email address
Most companies use one pattern for everyone, such as first@company.com, first.last@company.com or flast@company.com. Find any one address at the company and you can usually work out the rest.
- Look for a real address from the same company: blog author pages, press releases, GitHub commits, conference speaker pages.
- Email-finding tools such as Hunter show the pattern a company uses and addresses published on the web.
- Check a guessed address with an email verifier before you send, so it doesn't bounce.
- Use the work address, not a personal one, unless they've published the personal one for this purpose.
4. What to avoid
- Generic inboxes (jobs@, hr@, careers@): they go to the same pile as the application form.
- Emailing many people at the same company at once with the same text. Pick one, and only try another if there's no reply after your follow-ups.
- Guessing without checking: bounced emails hurt how your later emails are delivered.
5. Or let it be done for you
Cold Email Desk looks up the people to contact for each company it finds you (founders and engineering leads at startups, people at your level at large companies) and checks each work email before showing it. Then it drafts the first email; you send it yourself.
Questions people ask
How do I find who the hiring manager is for a job?
Check the job post for the team or "reports to" line, then search LinkedIn for that company with titles like engineering manager or tech lead in the same location.
How can I find someone's work email?
Find the company's email pattern from any published address (or an email-finding tool), build the address from the person's name, and check it with an email verifier before sending.
Is it okay to email a hiring manager directly?
Yes, if it's short, specific to their team, and you apply through the careers page too. Follow up at most twice.
Let Cold Email Desk do the slow part
It finds fresh roles and newly funded startups that fit your profile, rates each one, finds the right person and writes the first email in your voice. You read it, change it and send it yourself.
See how it works