Case Study: Building a team for a Bill Gates-backed, Energy Storage 'Moonshot'

The Company

Malta Inc 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 - BEV only invests in companies that have the potential to cut annual global emissions by as much as 500 million metric tons.

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:

• Principal Controls Engineer - Cambridge, MA
• Program Manager - Cambridge, MA
• Project Engineer - Cambridge, MA
• Senior Simulation & Modeling Engineer - Cambridge, MA
• Mechanical & Process Engineer - Cambridge, MA

The Solution

We began working with Malta Inc in March 2019 and Ramya Swaminathan (CEO) was keen to build the team quickly (they had 5 employees) without compromising on quality as they set about building a pilot-scale 10 MW facility.

From our conversations with the Malta team, we knew the searches were going to be challenging from the offset – to identify senior individuals with significant experience developing & managing 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

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.

From start to finish, the process took 60 days.

The additional four searches followed in a similar fashion with the Program Manager role taking slightly longer to complete (about 90 days - the role initially began as a Project Manager role before we tweaked it midway through the search, something we're very accustomed with)

We were delighted that 4 of the 5 candidates we placed with Malta were women and, as with every search we undertake, we look further and wider to provide our clients with candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Ramya (CEO) & a few of the successful candidates gave their feedback below on the process:

Ramya Swaminathan (CEO)

'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 look forward to working with him in the future'

Mert Geveci (Principle Controls Engineer)

"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."

Carla Niederhofer (Program Manager)

"Jon Rose was the recruiter who reached out to me the day after I applied for a position with a clean energy startup company. I was impressed with his knowledge of the Clean Energy industry as well as the role I was applying for. He was very responsive to my questions and the interview and hiring process moved very quickly. I highly recommend Jon to any company looking to staff up"

Pravallika Vinnakota (Simulation & Modeling Engineer)

"Jon helped me make the career change that I didn't know I wanted. The clean energy industry was new to me but Jon answered all of my questions and helped me feel more confident about making the move. He made the entire process of interviewing extremely easy and efficient. He took the time to find out what my background was and what I was looking for to make sure that the company I was talking to was a good fit for me and vice-versa. I did not have to spend much time explaining my situation either, he immediately understood my technical background and provided really good advice. This ability of his, combined with his industry expertise, makes Jon one of the best choices for those looking to make a career move or any company looking to recruit in the clean energy industry."

If you'd like to learn more about our services, please get in touch - jonathan@greenrecruitmentcompany.com.