Beyond Recruiter Buzzwords: How 20 Years in Additive Manufacturing Shapes Modern Hiring

If you’ve been following 3Dnatives, you’ve probably come across Gil Lavi before. We first profiled him and his company, 3D Alliances, back in 2019, and again in 2024 when 3D Alliances launched IMPACT, a program to help additive manufacturing companies optimize their channel networks. If you want the fuller backstory, those two articles are worth a read.

This time, we’re focusing on a different piece of what 3D Alliances does: talent acquisition. The company works with hardware, software, and material companies in the additive manufacturing space to help them grow through channel recruitment, marketing and lead generation, revenue acceleration, strategic alliances, and talent acquisition.

We sat down with Lavi to talk about why companies come to 3D Alliances for hiring, what sets their approach apart from a typical recruiter, and how two decades in this industry shapes their approach. Lavi also shared his read on which AM roles are in high demand right now, and which ones he expects to matter most in years to come.

Talent Acquisition as Part of the Bigger Picture

Gil Lavi, and Elvis Perez from 3D Systems.

3D Alliances works with a network of over 3,100 3D printing resellers across 81 countries, and it has built the industry’s largest AM ecosystem. The company’s team of 11 professionals is spread across the globe, covering Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Over the years, 3D Alliances has worked with companies at every stage of their journey, from small startups taking their first steps toward global expansion, to industry leaders looking for specific strategic initiatives. The resellers that 3D Alliances work with sell hardware, software, and materials on behalf of manufacturers who don’t have the resources to open local offices in every market. For instance, when an American company wants to sell in Germany or Japan, it’s rarely practical to send its own sales team there. Instead, it recruits a local reseller who already knows the market, the language, and the customers.

That’s typically where 3D Alliances comes in first. “We usually start working with companies on channel recruitment,” Lavi said. Then, once a company has new channel partners, they need someone to manage them. “We already know the company, we know the products, we know their challenges,” Lavi explained. “This is why talent acquisition is part of the services we provide. They’re all connected to each other.”

This connection is what sets 3D Alliances apart from generic recruitment agencies, more than any claim about network size or professionalism. Of the ten people currently on the 3D Alliances team, eight previously worked at 3D printing companies or resellers themselves. 

“When someone asks me to recruit a channel manager, well, I was a channel manager for 20 years,” Lavi said. “I know all the ins and outs: how it works, the internal politics, the most important qualities to find in a person.” That industry experience, combined with a network of 8,000+ AM professionals built over ten years, is what 3D Alliances leans on when filling a role.

Two Companies, Two Different Hiring Problems

Two recent clients illustrate how the different pieces of 3D Alliances’ work tend to build on each other.

XJET, an Israeli metal and ceramic 3D printing company, worked with 3D Alliances to expand its channel partner network across Asia. As that network grew, the company needed a Senior Regional Sales Manager to manage those partners and engage directly with strategic accounts in the region. So, they turned back to 3D Alliances for the hire. 

“Their team, with extensive experience working for 3D printing companies and physical presence and understanding of the Asian markets, had an in-depth understanding of our technology, was familiar with our channel partners, and understood our company’s DNA,” said Guy Zimmerman, CEO of XJET. “This enabled them to quickly identify best candidates for sales and channels and accelerate our entry process.”

Mastrex, a younger, US-based company, had a different starting point. Rather than managing an existing channel network, the company needed to build its first sales and pre-sales presence in North America from the ground up, hires that would be responsible for engaging its very first potential customers. 

“It was important for us to find the right talent, professionals capable of working as a team in a fast-changing environment,” said Ilay Fridland, CEO of Mastrex. “3D Alliances’ professional approach, extensive talent network, and personal touch gave us access to top AM professionals. Within a matter of weeks, we were able to fill these positions with the right people and move forward with increasing our sales.”

Finding People and Finding Roles

Most of what 3D Alliances does on the talent acquisition side begins with a client’s open position. But roles aren’t the only starting point. Lavi also hears directly from professionals in the industry, whether via LinkedIn, email, or at trade shows. When that happens, he has two options: match them to an open position he already knows about, or go looking for one that doesn’t officially exist yet.

He pointed to one example: a candidate based in South Korea who reached out looking for work. Rather than waiting for a company to post a relevant opening, Lavi reached out directly to European and American companies to ask if they’d consider expanding into South Korea. Some said it wasn’t a market they were focused on. Others said that if they had a strong candidate, they’d be open to the conversation. 

“There is a reactive part of the talent acquisition, where I see an open position and I try to reach out to the company and find them talents,” Lavi said. “Then, there is the other side of approaching them and saying, ‘Hey, I have a candidate that might suit you, if you want to go into a specific industry or region.’”

With deep familiarity of the AM industry, 3D Alliances is well-positioned to help with talent acquisition. (Photo Credit: BCN3D Technologies)

What Makes a Position Difficult to Fill?

According to Lavi, most of the roles he’s asked to fill (sales managers, channel managers, marketing, application engineers) aren’t especially hard to source. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s not so complicated to find them,” he said. 

What can be difficult, however, is geography. Hiring in Europe or the US, Lavi said, is generally manageable even when it’s time-consuming. The harder searches are in markets like Japan, South Korea, and China, where language and cultural gaps play a bigger role. 

Fit goes beyond language, too. Lavi pointed to differences in working style and pace as another layer companies don’t always think about upfront, whether a candidate comes from a fast-moving startup culture or a more established, slower-moving one, and how well that matches the environment they’d be joining.

In-Demand AM Jobs: Now and In the Future

When asked what kinds of roles are seeing the most demand right now, Lavi pointed to a broader shift happening across the additive manufacturing industry. Production, applications, process, and manufacturing engineering roles are currently among the highest in demand, he said, as more users move from prototyping toward industrial production. 

Part of that shift is being driven from the other end of the market too, with prototyping increasingly served by lower-cost, high-volume solutions like those from Bambu Lab, pushing established AM companies further toward production-focused use cases where that expertise matters most.

Looking ahead, Lavi expects that shift to keep shaping which roles matter most. Over the next five to ten years, he thinks more companies will be trying to manufacture parts economically and consistently at scale. That, in his view, points to strong growth in roles involving automation or robotics, AI and data, digital manufacturing, and process monitoring: positions built around scaling production.

That forecast is an extension of the same philosophy behind 3D Alliances’ talent acquisition work today: understanding where an industry is headed is what makes it possible to find the right people for it. If your team is looking to grow, you can get in touch with the 3D Alliances team HERE. 

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*Cover Photo Credit: Gil Lavi, 3D Alliances