[1] An orphan at nine, Maller quickly started working whatever job he could find, attend school irregularly, and saved money to buy books and study at home.
When he was fourteen, he began working as a tutor until he saved enough money to come to America and join his three married sisters in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he got a job as an assistant for the public library's foreign language department.
During that time, he also wrote for several local Jewish publications, served as an editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for two years, and became librarian of the Menorah Society.
As a director of Institute of Crime Prevention, he published Studies in Service and Self-Control in 1929 and Character and Personality Traits in 1934.
[3] Maller worked as a lecturer and an educational psychology and research associate for Teachers College, Columbia University from 1929 to 1936.
[4] In 1949, Maller was named head of a new psycho-educational clinic that specialized in adjustment problems of gifted children and refugee families at Yeshiva University's School of Education and Community Administration.
He resigned from the position that year when New York State Comptroller Arthur Levitt Sr. appointed him Director of Research and Statistics in the Department of Audit and Control.