MOTIFE helped Kitopi, the Cloud Kitchen unicorn, hire a large team of engineers in just 6 months using a tailored Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) model.
The cloud kitchen providing the technology secret sauce for some of your favorite restaurants.
Kitopi is a tech-powered multi-brand food company that’s on a mission to satisfy the world’s appetite. Founded in Dubai and partner to more than 200 brands across 5 continents, Kitopi helps food and beverage companies expand beyond their traditional borders using its Cloud Kitchen concept.
Cloud Kitchens are centers where Kitopi prepares food on behalf of recognized restaurants and take-out and delivery brands (e.g. pizza, salad or sushi brands) to optimize the efficiency and cost of order preparation and delivery, without compromising on quality.
Kitopi’s special tech ingredient is its innovative Smart Kitchen Operating System (SKOS for short), which optimizes all aspects of kitchen operations in real time to maximize efficiency and increase utilization. Kitopi’s valuation surpassed $1 billion in 2021, the same year it opened its technology hub in Krakow.
People & Culture Lead, Kitopi Poland
Within the last 18 months, we managed to recruit a huge team. But what I’m most proud of, apart from the recruitment, is that we managed to create a fantastic culture.
We will continue to work with MOTIFE because we were so amazed by the cooperation.
Rapid business growth and a series of successful funding rounds suggested a bright future for Kitopi.
With big plans and high expectations, Kitopi was looking for a source of tech talent that could fuel the next chapter of its remarkable growth story. Kitopi looked to Krakow and to MOTIFE.
More than a year into the pandemic, the restaurant industry was embracing digital and adapting to the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 landscape. Increased digitalization and concepts like Cloud Kitchen were enabling restaurants to find new ways to do business in otherwise-challenging circumstances. Solutions like Kitchen as a Service, already gaining in popularity prior to the pandemic, became even more relevant.
In order to build on its momentum and capitalize on market trends, Kitopi needed to scale up its software engineering capabilities in Krakow, and quickly.
Although Kitopi’s need for tech talent was huge, it did not have the capacity to recruit dozens of engineers in a short space of time. It was decided that scaling up the existing in-house recruitment team would be neither efficient, nor sufficient to meet the company’s growing needs. External expertise was required. That’s when Kitopi connected with MOTIFE.
Kitopi’s long-term ambitions and prospective growth meant that, beyond addressing a short-term need to quickly bring in skills and technical expertise, the company sought to build a team and a culture that would grow and thrive with the company in the long term. For this reason, Kitopi sought a recruitment partner that could emphasize the human touch and help build both a strong team and a positive culture.
In MOTIFE, Kitopi found an experienced Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) partner with expansive and intimate knowledge of the local market and the specific characteristics of its talent pool. Kitopi was confident that it could grant autonomy to MOTIFE, knowing that its own values would be reflected in the recruitment and hiring process.
Together, we considered multiple options, before agreeing that the best approach would be a dedicated MOTIFE recruiter working on behalf of Kitopi as part of a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) model.
Thanks to the RPO model, Kitopi was able to rapidly onboard an experienced tech recruiter from MOTIFE, and plug this recruiter into the Kitopi organization. The dedicated recruiter operates as part of the Kitopi team, including rebranding their LinkedIn profile to Kitopi’s and representing the Kitopi organization in interactions with potential candidates.
At the same time, the dedicated recruiter benefits from the support of the whole MOTIFE team and is able to tap into the benefits of MOTIFE’s candidate-sourcing and recruitment marketing campaigns. This represents a true ‘win-win’ for Kitopi – all the warmth, presence, and professionalism of a dedicated recruiter combined with rapid results.
Together, MOTIFE and Kitopi shaped the desired recruitment process and just 2 weeks later, the first candidates were being introduced.
Working with a dedicated recruiter as part of an RPO model, MOTIFE was able to recruit a large team of senior- and mid-level tech professionals for Kitopi in just 6 months. This rapid recruitment was possible thanks to MOTIFE’s strong local presence and our ability to plug Kitopi into a rich and proven talent pool, quickly, cost effectively, and without risk.
In addition to helping Kitopi fulfill its ambitious growth plans, the partnership with MOTIFE freed up the people of Kitopi to focus on onboarding and integrating new hires, building a positive workplace and culture, and devoting more energy to employer branding activities. In this way, Kitopi was able to focus on strengthening its core for the long term, with MOTIFE ensuring a consistent supply of top tech talent.
There are currently over 100 people working at Kitopi’s tech hub in Krakow. The team boasts 11 product squads, a mix of engineers and product professionals, and skill sets ranging from Java and front-end development, through to DevOps and Data Science. Today, the Krakow center is Kitopi’s primary R&D center worldwide and there are ambitious plans for further growth.
As the restaurant segment continues to embrace digital and adapt to a post-pandemic reality, Kitopi and Krakow will be at the heart of the transformation.
Vice President of Engineering, Kitopi
Kitopi is the world’s leading state-of-the-art, managed cloud kitchen platform with over 3 000 employees and operating across UAE, KSA, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.
To enter new markets Kitopi needed to scale up its engineering capabilities in Poland.
Working with MOTIFE is like a friendship.
We share common goals. Our success is their success. I really enjoy how they go deep into understanding our needs and I would highly recommend MOTIFE as a partner.
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