Head of Talent/Recruiting Lead

Head of Talent

Talent is the single biggest lever at an early-stage company. Every hire shapes culture, velocity, and trajectory. You'll build the recruiting function from the ground up – owning strategy, process, and execution across all roles.

This is a player-coach role. You'll be hands-on in sourcing, screening, and closing candidates while simultaneously building the infrastructure, processes, and eventually the team that scales recruiting as the company grows. You'll partner directly with founders on hiring strategy, compensation decisions, and organizational design.

The best recruiting leaders at this stage are builders, not just managers. You should be energized by the craft of recruiting – finding exceptional people, telling a compelling story, and closing competitive candidates against bigger companies with deeper pockets. You'll need to be scrappy, data-driven, and deeply networked in the talent markets that matter.

What You'll Do

• Partner with founders and leadership to define hiring strategy, prioritize roles, and forecast headcount

• Own full-cycle recruiting for critical hires: sourcing, screening, interview coordination, offer negotiation, and closing

• Build recruiting infrastructure from scratch: ATS implementation, interview processes, scorecards, and candidate experience

• Develop employer brand and talent marketing; careers page, job descriptions, social presence, and content

• Create and maintain compensation philosophy, leveling frameworks, and offer benchmarking

• Source proactively through direct outreach, referrals, events, and community engagement

• Track recruiting metrics and use data to optimize funnel performance and hiring outcomes

• Hire and develop recruiting team members as volume increases

Qualifications

• 6+ years of recruiting experience, with at least 2 years in a leadershipor solo Head of Talent role

• Track record of building recruiting at a high-growth startup, ideally through a 10→50+ employee scale

• Hands-on recruiting skill – you can source, screen, and close, not just manage others doing it

• Deep networks in technical talent markets: engineering, product, design, AI/ML

• Experience implementing and optimizing ATS systems (Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever)

• Strong understanding of compensation benchmarking and offer strategy in competitive markets

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, ability to represent the company to candidates at all levels

• Data-driven approach to recruiting with experience tracking and optimizing key metrics

Nice to Have

• Experience recruiting for AI/ML roles and familiarity with the technical talent landscape

• Background recruiting at a company in the same vertical (fintech, healthtech, legaltech, etc.)

• Experience building recruiting at multiple startups through different growth stages

• Established relationships with executive recruiters and search firms

• Experience with employer branding, recruiting marketing, or talent community building

• Background as a recruiter at a top-tier tech company