STARTUP HIRING CASE STUDY
Building Ona's GTM & Design Team After a Stalled Agency Search
Ona (formerly Gitpod) partnered with The Search Experience's GTM and design recruiters to restart a stalled agency search and build the team it needed to sell into the enterprise. The Series A AI developer tools startup had around 40 people, engineering in Berlin and a remote go-to-market team across the US and Europe, and was competing for deals with banks and insurers after close to seven months with another agency without a single finalist.
TSE placed 4 permanent hires across product marketing, growth, developer platform and design engineering, plus 2 contract brand designers, with an average time to fill of 7.3 weeks. All four permanent hires were still on the team when OpenAI acquired Ona in 2026.
Stage
Series A
Founded
2016 (As Gitpod)
Industry
DevTools / AI Agents
HQ
Berlin
Team Size
40 employees
The Challenge
Ona was competing for enterprise deals usually reserved for much larger vendors, with a team of around 40 people. A European agency had spent almost seven months on its product marketing search without a single finalist, and the brief called for marketers and designers who had already taken technical products into the enterprise.
Find GTM and design hires with real technical depth and enterprise experience.
Pitch a company most candidates had not heard of against better-known employers.
Hire for culture as rigorously as skills, ahead of a dedicated culture interview.
Our Hiring Strategy
01
Stakeholder Alignment
Aligned Ona's Head of Product Marketing, COO and Head of People on what great looked like before sourcing started.
02
Combined GTM Searches
Ran the product marketing and growth searches together, assessing both hires against one picture of the GTM team.
03
Iterative Brief Refinement
Reshaped the growth, developer platform and brand briefs as the market answered back, adding coding and enterprise skills.
04
Opportunity-Led Positioning
Sold candidates on the team, real product-market fit and a CTO who understood design, rather than the job spec alone.
05
Culture-Fit Screening
Screened for Ona's operating principles in first conversations and prepped finalists for its dedicated culture interview.
PROVEN RESULTS. REAL OUTCOMES.
The Results
100%
Retention
of Hires
OpenAI
Acquired Ona
in 2026
7 Wks
Avg. Time
to Fill
5
Avg. Profiles submitted before Hires Made
Key Hires
✓ Senior Product Marketing Manager
✓ Growth Marketing Lead
✓ Developer Platform Specialist
✓ Design / Product Engineer
✓ Brand Designer (Contract) ×2
"I was introduced to Paul as 'the vibes maker', someone who would not only understand the executional needs of our business, but also the energy and chemistry required for the right hire. And he truly is that guy. I've never worked with a recruiter who asks all the right questions (the ones I would ask as a candidate).
There's no one I'd rather work with on any GTM search.
Paul's network is unmatched, and his way of working is awesome."
Talia Moyal, Head of Product Marketing
FAQs
How do you hire GTM talent for a technical developer tools product?
We look for people who have already marketed or sold technical products to engineers, then filter for stage. Every Ona finalist had worked at a developer-focused startup through a period of fast growth, so they could build without a playbook.
How quickly can a stalled search be turned around?
Ona's product marketing search had run for almost seven months elsewhere without a finalist. We re-scoped the brief with three stakeholders before sourcing, submitted five candidates and placed the hire in 7 weeks.
Why did Ona keep working with TSE after the first two placements?
The first two GTM hires landed in 7 and 8 weeks, so when Ona needed a developer platform specialist and design hires, it came back to the same partner. One recruiter telling the Ona story kept the message consistent for candidates.
Why is it hard to hire a designer who can code?
Most designers now experiment with code, but few have designed for developer tools and can build what they design. Ona's Design Engineer search took 20 submissions to find that profile and still closed in 6 weeks.
How did TSE screen for Ona's culture before the interview round?
At 40 people, one hire changes how the whole team works. We tested how candidates handled challenge, pushback and conflict in first conversations, then prepped finalists for Ona's dedicated culture interview.
What is a Developer Platform Specialist?
At Ona, it's the same job as a Forward Deployed Engineer: a technical hire who implements the platform inside customer environments. The right hire also had to understand how banks and insurers make decisions.
People Also Ask
How did TSE sell Ona to candidates who hadn't heard of it?
We led with evidence, not the mission statement. Candidates heard about the caliber of the team, real product-market fit and enterprise customers in banking and insurance, which told them the risk was worth taking.
Why did Ona hire a Growth Marketing Lead at Series A?
Product-market fit was clear and larger accounts were in view, so Ona needed pipeline before its planned Series B. The role grew into equal parts demand generation and GTM engineering as the search progressed.
When should a startup use contract designers for a rebrand?
When the new brand is already designed and the work is rolling it out. Ona's rebrand was designed with an agency, so two contract brand designers from Scale AI and Vercel applied it across sales, digital and events.
How fast did TSE fill Ona's Senior Product Marketing Manager role?
In 7 weeks from kickoff to accepted offer, faster than TSE's 8 to 10 week average for GTM searches. Five candidates were submitted, and the CEO closed it with an hour-long walk-and-talk.
What does a GTM engineer bring to a growth marketing role?
The systems behind demand generation: tooling, automation and data pipelines. Ona's Growth Marketing Lead brief grew in this direction during the search, and the person hired could write code as well as run campaigns.