Israeli-based data engineering startup Treeverse were seeking a developer advocate and director of solutions architecture to join the organisation in the continued expansion of their new data lake platform, LakeFS. For the developer advocate position, the organisation sought an individual with a data engineering background who was technically proficient in relevant programming languages, as well as an excellent writer and speaker. For the director of solutions architecture role, the company sought an individual with significant experience running a solutions engineering or architecture domain. For both positions, it was important that candidates had experience working within a startup environment. Both positions were remote, with occasional travel to Israel required. Both positions were recruited on a retained basis, allowing GR4 consultant Ollie to devote his exclusive time and attention to the project.

Ollie worked extremely closely with both the CEO and hiring manager of Treeverse to understand the exact requirements of each role. Once the job and person specification were approved, Ollie began the search and selection process. This included more traditional methods such as reaching out to our existing network and headhunting via LinkedIn Recruiter and other platforms, as well as connecting with speakers at recent data conferences. After finding numerous promising candidates for each role, video calls were set up with each to further assess suitability. A shortlist was created and discussed with relevant members of the Treeverse team, ten candidates were chosen to proceed to interview, and calls with the CTO and hiring manager were arranged. Following this, the best candidates proceeded to further interview rounds, culminating in a meeting with Treeverse’s CEO. As part of our retained recruitment service, Ollie delivered progress reports on a weekly basis, which included full details of candidates we’d spoken with and future targets. As many candidates were based in the US, we also facilitated seamless communication between time zones.

After an extensive search and selection process, the developer advocate and director of solutions architecture positions were filled within eight and four weeks respectively. For both roles, the organisation preferred the chosen candidate to be living on the west coast of the US close to San Francisco, so we provided assistance for the chosen developer advocate to relocate to the bay area. After both candidates had been placed, we stayed in consistent contact with both them and the clients to ensure expectations were being met and to see if we could provide further assistance. Both placed candidates are thriving in their roles and have received excellent feedback from the CEO. We have subsequently been retained to fill three other positions with the company within community and product, and we look forward to continuing to work together closely.