Kaiko
The Client:
Kaiko is a global leader in digital asset market data, analytics, indices, and pricing, serving institutional investors, financial services firms, and regulators. For over a decade, they’ve provided trusted, regulatory-compliant data infrastructure that bridges traditional finance with on-chain digital asset markets.
“The quality of candidates Plexus brought to us was outstanding. They helped us secure two critical hires and proved themselves reliable at every stage, which is why we’ve since expanded our partnership with them.”
The Challenge:
Kaiko came to us during a key growth phase. They were expanding their engineering teams across Europe, with plans to scale further into New York, and needed two mission-critical hires. One was a Golang Engineer with strong experience in financial trading markets. The other was a Blockchain Data Engineer who could work in Golang rather than the more typical Python used across the data world.
Both roles demanded a niche crossover of skills. Kaiko wanted candidates with deep market-data or trading backgrounds. The exact profile often comes from fintech or trading desks rather than Web3. This instantly limited the available talent pool.
They had been working with another agency who were performing well on a different search, but they struggled heavily with these Golang-based roles. Kaiko passed the brief to us to see if we could crack it.
Our approach:
We started by tightening the brief. For both roles, the non-negotiables were:
• Strong Golang experience
• Background in trading, market-data or index products
• Kafka and similar tooling
• Strong communication and team fit
From there, we ran a targeted search through our database, leaning on candidates we’d previously mapped for highly technical backend roles. Both eventual hires were already in our network but hadn’t been contacted for some time. We refreshed them, qualified them properly, and aligned them closely to Kaiko’s requirements.
Throughout the interview process, we managed feedback loops, prepared candidates for each stage, and worked closely with Kaiko’s hiring team on structure and decision-making
Impact:
With both hires in place and integrating into the team, Kaiko has since expanded the partnership significantly.
They’ve now entrusted us with further roles, including a projected ramp-up hiring plan for Q1 2026.
Kaiko’s trust in our delivery has grown to the point where they are now routing their most complex engineering searches directly to us.
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Niche Talent Mapping
Kaiko required engineers with an uncommon crossover of Golang expertise and deep trading or market-data experience. We leveraged our long-standing network of backend specialists, many mapped well before this search, to surface candidates operating at the intersection of fintech, trading infrastructure, and Web3.
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Precision Search
Rather than casting a wide net, we refined the brief to focus on true non-negotiables. This allowed us to target candidates who could add immediate value, avoiding profiles that were strong technically but misaligned with Kaiko’s product and data requirements.
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End-to-End Process Management
We managed the full interview process, from candidate preparation to feedback loops and decision-making support. This ensured momentum was maintained throughout and allowed Kaiko’s team to move quickly and confidently in a competitive market.
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Gaining candidate buy-in
Both roles were filled within six to eight weeks, despite the seniority and niche nature of the searches. One hire involved navigating a competing offer, which we successfully closed by positioning Kaiko’s role as a long-term career move into Web3, resulting in two strong engineers joining the team.
