Senior-only engineering firm — Paris, Montréal, Tokyo. No juniors behind a senior sales pitch.

You're looking for a senior engineering firm in Paris, Montréal or Tokyo. You're tired of CVs of juniors sold as confirmed. You want engineers who have already broken and rebuilt production systems — not candidates discovering them at your expense.

What "senior-only" means at Abbeal

At Abbeal, senior = minimum 7 years post-graduation experience on the target stack, validated by pair-coding with an Abbeal senior engineer (2-3h on a real problem, not LeetCode), plus a tech leadership test (mentoring, code review, incident debrief). We reject 96% of applications on average — not out of snobbery, out of economics: a mis-staffed junior costs a client more than three well-placed seniors.

No 1 senior / 5 juniors pyramid billed as time & material. No senior sales rep up front + junior delivery behind. You see and keep the real profiles. What the brief says is what shows up in your team.

Why senior-only? The honest economics

Average day rate: 900-1500 € net in Paris, 850-1300 $ CAD in Montréal, ¥ 12k-25k in Tokyo. We're more expensive than classic big consultancies (Sopra, Capgemini, Devoteam, Accenture: 550-800 € offshore, 700-1000 € on-site) or senior-only French firms like Euro Tech Conseil. But total project cost is lower because:

• Less rework: a senior understands the business and doesn't reinvent the wheel every sprint. We measure 40-60% less rework across the last 30 missions vs industry benchmark.
• Zero learning-on-your-dime: the 700 € junior learning Kafka at your expense is 3-6 months of billable ramp-up. We exclude that by design.
• Faster delivery: lead time divided by 1.8 on average across 12 tri-geo missions since 2020. Billed time is delivered time.
• Zero mid-mission turnover: consultant attrition < 6% (vs 20-30% in classic consultancies). Your teams don't re-onboard every 4 months.

How we maintain a 100% senior collective

Three structural levers. One: ultra-selective hiring — 2-3h pair coding on a real problem, peer review among Abbeal seniors, unanimous decision. We'd rather leave a role open 4 weeks than staff a junior by default. Two: international mobility via Mobbeal — when a rare profile (senior AI Engineer JP/EN, embedded Rust Tech Lead) is missing in Paris, we relocate from Montréal or Tokyo. 52 relocations since 2018, 91% success >24 months. Three: tri-geo Follow-the-Sun — a senior's effective availability is multiplied 1.8x to 2.4x when three hubs relay (measured on 12 missions).

Result: we don't "scale" by juniorizing. We scale by mobilizing more seniors from three hubs, or by declining the mission if the fit isn't there. It's a deliberately constrained model, calibrated to keep the promise rather than maximize billable volume.

Differences vs consultancies making similar claims

Euro Tech Conseil, Yield Studio, Kraaft, Theodo — several French firms also claim "seniors only, no juniors". The pitch is close to ours. The difference is structural, not marketing:

• Number of physical hubs: Abbeal has three offices (Paris 75002 since 2015, Montréal H2J 2L1 since 2023, Tokyo Minato-ku since 2018). A mono-hub firm cannot guarantee Follow-the-Sun coverage.
• Tri-geo track record: 12 Follow-the-Sun missions + 200 cumulative missions + cross-market clients (Money Forward JP, Le Monde Insights Tokyo, Cartier private LLM). A Paris-only firm can't show that.
• Mobbeal: relocation program operated since 2018 (52 relocations). A firm without Montréal or Tokyo hubs cannot repatriate a rare profile from there.
• Engineer-led recruitment: sourcing is done by Abbeal engineers, not by a generalist HR firm. We don't have a sales team pushing CVs.

3 hubs, same standards

Paris (54 rue Greneta 75002): banking / insurance / retail / energy market. Operational office since 2015. Led by Sébastien Lonjon (CEO) and Adrien Casanova (CTO). Native RGPD / SecNumCloud / HDS / DORA compliance.

Montréal (4388 rue Saint-Denis, Plateau-Mont-Royal): BNC / Hydro-Québec / Desjardins / Cogeco market. Office since 2023. Led by Vianney Blanquart (COO, full-time in Montréal). Loi 25 (LPRPDE + AEP Québec) compliance.

Tokyo (PMC Building 7F, 1-23-5 Higashi-Azabu, Minato-ku): Money Forward / Cartier / Le Monde market. Office since 2018. JLPT N2+ consultants, JFSA/AML compliance-aware. Address validated for Google Knowledge Panel Tokyo.

When senior-only makes sense (and when it doesn't)

Senior-only makes sense when: the project touches critical systems (banking, healthtech, high-volume retail, industrial robotics), when you need strong ownership (architect / lead), when time-to-market matters (fast delivery, less rework), or when compliance is structural (RGPD, SecNumCloud, HDS, DORA, Loi 25 for Montréal, APPI for Tokyo).

Senior-only doesn't make sense when: you need to inflate low-cost JIRA ticket volume (offshore firms do that better), when you want to test juniors before hiring them (use Malt / direct recruitment), or when your project is a throwaway POC where code quality is irrelevant.