Scaling front-end capacity for one of the largest precious-metals retailers in the US

The setup

APMEX is one of the largest online precious-metals retailers in the US. The internal roadmap had a steady stream of website initiatives, marketing landing pages, and HubSpot-driven experiences — and not enough front-end capacity to land it all without dragging the rest of the team.

The brief was practical: a front-end developer who could integrate into ongoing projects fast, work alongside the internal team, and ship across both modern front-end workflows and HubSpot environments — without APMEX spending months running a recruitment cycle in parallel.

What was actually getting in the way

The friction wasn't a shortage of front-end developers. It was finding one who fit this surface area without an internal hiring lift:

• Two specialisms, not one. "Front-end developer" is easy to source. "Front-end developer who's actually shipped inside HubSpot" is meaningfully narrower.
• Embedded, not project-based. The role needed continuity — someone who'd hold context across sprints, not a freelancer dropping in for a one-off.
• Speed without quality loss. Marketing initiatives don't wait for a 90-day hiring funnel. But "fast" usually means "compromised" if you're sourcing alone.
• Internal ops overhead. Standing up a contractor-management surface (contracts, compliance, payments, ongoing coordination) for a single seat is a bad return on engineering-leadership time.

How the engagement actually ran

Diiirect scoped the role with APMEX's team — what the workflow looked like, what HubSpot maturity was actually required, what "embedded" needed to mean in practice — and then ran the standard validation stack:

• Targeted sourcing against the front-end + HubSpot overlap
• AI-assisted first-stage screening
• Profile and credential verification
• Pre-qualification interviews
• Technical and platform-experience review
• Onboarding and engagement setup

By the time APMEX interviewed, every candidate was someone Diiirect had already pressure-tested against the role's real signals. The selected developer integrated into APMEX's workflows and started supporting active initiatives within weeks.

Around the seat, Diiirect ran the operational layer end-to-end — contractor agreements, compliance, payments, day-to-day coordination — so APMEX's internal team kept all of its time on execution, not contractor administration.

What changed

• Front-end capacity expanded without an internal hiring cycle. The new seat was contributing on real initiatives in weeks, not quarters.
• Two specialisms in one person. Front-end + HubSpot fluency in the same developer, rather than splitting the work across two roles.
• Continuity across initiatives. The developer carried context from landing-page work into broader website projects — not a freelancer rotation.
• Zero contractor ops on the APMEX side. Contracts, compliance, and payments all live with Diiirect.
• An ongoing partnership, not a placement. The engagement evolved into a long-term collaboration spanning multiple site and HubSpot initiatives.

About Diiirect

Diiirect is an AI-first remote recruitment platform. We help companies search, validate, shortlist, hire, and keep running global talent — combining structured workflows, skills assessments, and the operational infrastructure (contracts, payments, admin) most companies don't want to build themselves.