Two hires, two hiring managers, one narrow talent pool.

The situation

The client sells market data and infrastructure services to banks, brokers, trading firms and exchanges, and was scaling that business.

The engineering hire needed hands-on experience of real-time market data environments: exchange feeds, feed handlers, Linux, networking, data distribution, support and performance-sensitive infrastructure.

The product hire had to sit between clients, engineering, commercial teams and senior stakeholders, and understand how market data products are consumed, packaged, delivered and improved for institutional users.

Both ran at the same time under different hiring managers, with separate evaluation criteria and different definitions of success.

The challenge

The approach

1. 01

   Discovery and role calibration

   • ·Held separate intake conversations for each role, with each hiring manager.
   • ·Kept the two briefs apart, while naming the market data knowledge both hires needed.
   • ·Defined the engineering profile around real-time feeds, Linux, exchange connectivity, data distribution, feed support and production stability.
   • ·Defined the product profile around market data product ownership, client workflows, roadmap delivery and translating between commercial, technical and user requirements.
2. 02

   Market mapping and sourcing

   • ·Mapped candidates across exchanges, market data vendors, low-latency infrastructure firms, connectivity providers, banks, brokers and electronic trading businesses.
   • ·For the engineering role, prioritised real-time feed environments, ticker plant technology, exchange data, production support and latency-sensitive infrastructure.
   • ·For the product role, targeted people close to market data platforms, institutional data products, trading workflows, connectivity and analytics.
   • ·Focused on people who would not need the basics of market data explained to them.
3. 03

   Shortlisting and interview management

   • ·Built two separate shortlists, each aligned to its hiring manager.
   • ·Ran both processes side by side without letting either slip behind the other.
   • ·Filtered out candidates too far removed from market data to explain how their experience translated.
4. 04

   Offer and closing

   • ·Took both hiring managers through final stages, feedback and offers.
   • ·Kept the two searches distinct to the end, so neither hire became a compromise between them.

The result

• Two specialist hires completed, one engineering and one product, delivered concurrently.
• Market Data Engineer: 26 screened, 6 presented, 4 interviewed, one offer, one hire, in 34 days.
• Product Manager: 21 screened, 5 presented, 3 interviewed, one offer, one hire, in 38 days.
• Two offers, two accepted.
• The business gained engineering depth and product ownership at the same time, rather than one and then the other.