Protect AI - Aquired By Palo Alto Networks

At Protect AI—a startup in AI/ML security— Ola was the sole in-house recruiter, responsible for building the entire hiring engine from

scratch. We weren’t just hiring engineers; we were creating the teams shaping the future of cybersecurity. I helped scale the company

from early stage to over 130 employees globally, contributing directly to its successful acquisition by Palo Alto Networks.
 

🎯 Key Results
 

40+ employees sourced and hired through my network across Engineering, AI/ML, Product, and Go-to-Market roles

22-day avg. time-to-fill for technical hires (global data)

35% hires from underrepresented groups (gender, ethnicity)

7-figure agency savings through in-house hiring

Traveled to Berlin, Seattle, and Bangalore to embed with teams and optimize local hiring processes
 

🌐 Global Reach
 

Seattle / Remote USA: Engineering, GTM, Director of Engineering, Cloud Security, SRE, Product Marketing, Customer Success Engineering, Sales Teams

Berlin, Germany: AI Research, Product Design, ML Engineers, Solutions Architects

Bangalore, India: Backend, DevOps, Full Stack Engineers, UX/UI Design, Product Desing, Solution Engineering
 

🔧 Systems & Tools

ATS: Full ownership of Ashby configuration, workflows, and reporting

Sourcing: LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, Stack Overflow, RSA/BlackHat networking

Internal Ops: Built 10+ interview templates in Notion & Slack for hiring managers and interviewers

Processes: Compensation benchmarking, leveling guides, and headcount planning frameworks


 

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