Project Description

Malta graduated from incubation to long-duration grid storage startup in December 2018, with a $26 million raise led by the Bill Gates backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

The Malta project started life in X, Alphabet’s far-out R&D lab formerly known as Google X. Malta uses a heat pump to store electricity in hot molten salts and cold antifreeze liquid, then uses a heat engine to convert the energy back to electricity for the grid; electricity goes in and electricity goes out.

The Roles

We were retained by Malta Inc in March 2019 to manage several senior-level technical searches, one being their Principal Controls Engineer – employee no.6.

The Solution

From our conversations with the Malta team we knew this was going to be a challenging search from the offset – to identify a senior individual with significant experience developing controls software for large physical systems across multiple industries and who could manage strategic partners from various technical backgrounds with an early stage startup.

Engaged on a retained search, we were able to dedicate a full suite of resources to Malta’s search immediately, a dedicated project manager and a detailed 28 stage process geared to gaining a deep understanding of the role/company culture, mapping multiple markets extensively, approaching the best candidates with a compelling story and managing the process efficiently until successfully completing the assignment.

Additionally, we flew out to Boston to meet the whole team as the search began.

The Result

From start to finish, the process took 60 days. We began the search for the Principle Controls Engineer late March, dived straight into research mode, presented a shortlist of qualified candidates in April, subsequently managed several phone and in-person interviews and by 29th May 2019, Malta’s chosen candidate had accepted their offer and started with them in June.

Ramya & Mert both gave their feedback below on the process.

Testimonials

As a small company undergoing rapid growth, it’s very important to Malta that we find candidates whose technical skills, experience, and personality align with our company’s needs and culture, and that we find those people fast. Jon helped us do just that. He made sure he understood the specific needs of our company, including the company culture we’re trying to build, provided commentary on how the strengths and weaknesses of those candidates would complement our team, and then used our feedback from each interview to refine his selections. Thanks to Jon, we’ve filled several key positions with excellent employees who enable us to focus on our goals instead of our hiring search. We highly recommend Jon Rose and Hyperion Executive Search, and look forward to working with him in the future.

Ramya Swaminathan, Malta Inc. CEO

Working with Jon during the transition to my current position was a great experience for me. In addition to working hard to understand the potential fit between the company and myself, he was able to guide me through the additional challenges associated with switching from a very large corporation to a tech startup. He was able to leverage his experience with other clients who went through a similar process and accurately point out relevant aspects of the choice that mattered to me. He approached the process in a systematic manner and was able to guide me through in a very professional manner. At every step, I felt that he was my advocate and he worked hard to make sure that the process ran smoothly. I would recommend him as a recruiter without hesitation both to potential employees and employers.

Mert Geveci, Malta’s Principle Controls Engineer