By investing time with the recruiter, the small team at Launchpad ensured strong alignment with company’s needs and roles, resulting in accurate shortlists that fit both technical and cultural requirements. This alignment made interviews, selection, and offers smoother and efficient. Here’s how it went.

In Q1 of 2025 I was contacted by Cameron Sharpe, Head of Hardware Development at Launchpad to discuss working on their recruitment of specialist engineers to their Edinburgh Team.

The company is combining AI and advanced robotics to support critical automation strategies with the aim to help companies build products faster, smarter, and more affordably. Supported by Scottish Enterprise, the company was entering a round of funding. The company was planning the team growth in Edinburgh and had identified 4 key positions to attend to and was looking for senior Electronics, Mechanical, Mechatronics & Systems and Manufacturing Engineers.

The first and most important task was to get to know the company. Whilst I had worked with Cameron in the past, so he had experience of my process and in-depth involvement with candidates and clients when engaged on key projects, he felt it was important that I gained an understanding of the company, the journey they were involved in and to meet the CEO and other stakeholders.

So 3 meetings were held.

First an informal meeting with Cameron and his counterpart the Head of Software Build at the company in Edinburgh. This brought me up to date on where the company was and what it was looking to achieve as well as the timescales. Crucially they were able to be clear and honest on what might delay and challenge the process. Companies going through funding are in a “hurry up and wait process” where they know they need to recruit but have to be cautious about doing so before the funding is finalised.
The honesty and clarity about where they were in the process would later bear dividends as it meant we were able to be clear with candidates and that helped ensure that those who were comfortable with a start-up nature of company were separated from those for whom this was challenging and less attractive. It also allowed for a clear payment structure to be implemented in order to protect both parties’ investment in the process.

A Second meeting a few weeks later with the CEO of the business helped define the culture at Launchpad which is a blend of roll your sleeves up and get things done, driven by their high energy and focussed CEO, with the modern work life balance sought by engineers in today’s market that allows flexibility and working from home. It is less about where you work and more about how effective you can be. Of course, remembering that this is an emerging start up with plenty of change to undergo in the coming months and years. People who are excited and comfortable with change, challenge, ownership and a responsibility to get things done but who appreciate a supportive and collaborative culture will do well at Launchpad. Getting to meet Jon (the CEO) was vital in terms of a meeting of minds and a commitment and enthusiasm to the cause. It allowed Jon to feel comfortable that Launchpad was assigning critical searches and hires to a team that had previous experience of working with a West Coast US Start-Up that was opening up an Edinburgh office as we had done notably with indie Semiconductor amongst others.

The 3^rd and final meeting was more to get into the details of the roles, any adjustments to them and to prioritise which seats were to be filled first. The depth of detail entered into here in terms of day-to-day responsibilities, career path and growth allowed us to get really granular on what the right person would look like. This isn’t just the hiring team instructing the recruiter it is a conversation that can help head off issues ahead of time allowing us to work in unison toward the right hire.

This meeting also allows us to generate the screening questions that we as the recruiter will ask candidates in the interview that we record, and with their permission, share with the hiring manager. That process reduces time and effort from the hiring team and allows them to home in on the candidates who don’t just look good on paper but also who they can see answering the standardised questions best. The ability to compare and contrast the recruiter’s shortlist allows the hiring team to invite targeted accurate candidates in for the face-to-face interviews.

Recruiting key people when you have a small hiring team that is already extremely busy is a time-consuming task but an important one, so doing so with great detail and with confidence that the recruiting partner has understood the brief, identified the right people and given the client choice but not too much choice is vital.

So, the results

Senior Electronic Engineer – a shortlist of 4 was introduced, 2 were selected for face-to-face interview and 1 was offered and accepted.

Senior Mechanical Engineer – a shortlist of 5 was introduced, the client was delighted with the quality of candidates and 4 were selected for interview, from these 2 were offered and accepted. The initial brief was for 1 engineer but the team felt the quality of candidate and the ramping up workload offered a need and with those candidates the opportunity to meet that need with the double hire.

For a small team to identify excellent candidates and run an efficient process the investment in time spent with the recruiter meant that the understanding of the company and the jobs was sufficiently aligned that the candidate shortlist was accurate to the technical and cultural needs of the company and that the company matched the candidate’s preferences. This meant the interview and ultimate selection and offer process was relatively smooth and less time consuming for the hiring team than it might otherwise have been.

The great news is that all 3 key candidates were able to start in the autumn of 2025 allowing for the company to proceed with projects and product design whilst allowing these hires to be absorbed into the business before proceeding with phase two of the recruitment round of impactful hires.

Enigma People Solutions is an award-winning technology recruitment consultancy. We find technical leaders for the emerging and enabling technology industries. Visit our services page for more information. Visit our job search page for the latest vacancies in photonics, electronics, semiconductor, software and IoT in Scotland and the UK. Check out our blog page for the latest in the technology industry. You can get in touch with us hello@enigmapeople.com or call us on + 44 131 510 8150