The Challenge
At seed stage with strong product-market fit, Dash0 was ready to build out a global sales engine with Europe and the US as key target markets. They had no dedicated recruiter, no recruiting department, and no standardized hiring processes. pplwise embedded one recruiting specialist, Jessica Kroll, to build the recruitment function from scratch and spearhead the global sales scale-up.
Die Herangehensweise
The engagement began with moving at an exceptional pace: the Ashby ATS was implemented within one week — against a recommended four-week timeline — ensuring a fully operational hiring infrastructure from day one. Alongside the rollout, Jessica established foundational processes, scorecards, and documentation, creating the hiring infrastructure Dash0 needed to scale quickly.
Jessica took an embedded, high-ownership approach: sourcing candidates, working closely with hiring managers and the CRO, managing pipelines from multiple sources, and becoming a genuine advocate for Dash0 by deeply understanding the product. Coverage was primarily Sales and Customer Success, with roles also filled in Engineering, and support across all departments on process questions and hiring manager queries.
Available across time zones for both European and US hiring, Jessica kept momentum high with proactive communication, fast decision cycles, and consistent follow-through – qualities critical to supporting a company scaling at startup speed.
Das Ergebnis
Within seven months, Jessica made 50 hires, including critical sales leadership roles and a VP of Engineering. pplwise spearheaded Dash0’s US market entry, growing the American team from zero to 27. The structures and processes built during this engagement laid the foundation for Dash0 to scale from 40 to 130 employees overall, supporting the company’s journey from seed stage (September 2025) to a $1 billion Series B valuation (March 2026).
About Dash0
Dash0 is disrupting the observability market – delivering open, scalable, affordable infrastructure intelligence built natively on OpenTelemetry. Founded by Mirko Novakovic (CEO), who previously built and sold Instana to IBM for $500M+, Dash0 was built by the same expert team with a mandate to make observability simpler and better. Launched in mid-2024, Dash0 reached 500+ customers by the end of 2025.
Was unser Kunde sagt
“Our pplwise recruiter didn't just fill roles — Jessica built the foundation of our entire hiring engine. In less than 7 months, she helped us scale from 40 to 130 people and took our US team from zero to 27. The speed and structure she brought were game-changing. I'd work with pplwise again without hesitation.”
