Cleantech Infrastructure Start-up (London)
Sourcing a Senior Infrastructure Engineer to Build the Cloud Foundation for a Real-Time Energy Analytics Platform
The Challenge
Our client was an early-stage cleantech start-up building a platform to help utilities and grid operators work with high-volume renewable energy data. The infrastructure did not yet exist at scale. They needed a Senior Infrastructure Engineer to design and build it, someone with strong AWS, Kubernetes, and Terraform experience who could operate effectively in a company that was still finding its shape.
That last part was the hardest sell. The role was genuinely interesting and the mission was real. But experienced infrastructure engineers at this level have options. Established employers offer more salary certainty, clearer career paths, and technology that is already working. Convincing the right person to back an early-stage business takes more than a job advert. The candidate needs to understand what they are walking into and why it is worth the risk.
The client came to Xist4 for a retained search because they needed structured market intelligence before they went anywhere near candidates, and a sourcing approach that could reach people who were not looking.
The Solution
Xist4 ran a retained search starting with a structured review of the hiring position and the available talent landscape before outreach began.
- Worked with the founders to move beyond the job description and define what the role actually needed to deliver technically in the first six months.
- Mapped infrastructure engineering talent across climate-tech, IoT, and adjacent sectors, covering compensation expectations, skills overlap, and what motivated people in this space to consider a move.
- Focused outreach on engineers with a track record in scaling cloud-native environments, particularly those with demonstrated interest in purpose-led or mission-driven work.
- Built candidate messaging that was honest about the stage of the business while making the technical opportunity, the ownership, and the long-term upside clear and credible.
- Assessed candidates on cloud architecture depth, infrastructure-as-code capability, and the practical experience of building systems that need to grow quickly and reliably.
The Result
Within five and a half weeks, Xist4 presented a shortlist of experienced infrastructure engineers with the right technical background and the right appetite for an early-stage environment.
The successful hire built the company’s first scalable cloud infrastructure, giving the platform the stability it needed to iterate faster and handle the data volumes the product depended on. For a start-up at this stage, that hire was not just an engineering decision. It was a commercial one.