I generally loathe recruiters, but I do feel a bit sorry for them. They are up against the real recruiters in this field: other software developers.

The pattern that I've seen over and over is:

* Good developer #1 starts a project.

* Hey, this project is great and there's more work here than one person can handle.

* Asks other good developers to see who is in between projects.

* Gig is filled without a "recruiter" ever knowing about it, because the real recruiter was Dev #1.