Job Description

Our client is a growing technology company developing highly specialized, technically complex products and solutions. The organization is building a team capable of operating at the intersection of advanced technology, engineering, research, and commercial execution.

The company is at an important stage of growth and is looking for a Founding Talent Lead to build and lead talent acquisition from the ground up while establishing foundational People Operations practices.

This is an opportunity to partner directly with the executive team and senior leaders to identify, attract, and close highly sought-after technical and business talent.

About the Role

This is not a recruiting coordinator or traditional HRBP role. It is a company-building role.

As the company's first dedicated Talent Lead, you will own recruiting end-to-end while helping define how the organization scales. You will work closely with leadership to build workforce strategy, establish hiring processes, create talent pipelines, and ensure every hire strengthens the organization's capabilities and culture.

You will partner closely with leaders across the organization to optimize onboarding, improve time to impact, and ensure new team members are positioned for success.

Many of the people the company needs will not be actively looking. They may be working in advanced technology organizations, research institutions, highly regulated industries, engineering firms, or high-growth technology companies. Finding, engaging, and closing this talent will be a core part of the role.

What you'll do

Build and Own Recruiting

• Lead full-cycle recruiting across technical, product, and business operations roles.
• Develop sourcing strategies for difficult-to-access talent markets.
• Build target-company maps and long-term talent pipelines.
• Conduct candidate outreach, screening, interview management, references, offers, and closing.
• Develop compelling recruiting narratives that reflect the company's mission, opportunity, and ambition.

What we're looking for

• 7+ years of recruiting experience, including substantial technical recruiting responsibility.
• Proven success recruiting highly specialized talent in competitive markets.
• Experience hiring engineers, researchers, technical professionals, or other highly specialized talent.
• Strong sourcing capability and the ability to identify technical depth versus surface-level experience.
• Comfort engaging with senior technical leaders and understanding complex technical environments.
• Exceptional written communication skills.
• Strong operational discipline and data-driven decision making.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity and build systems from scratch.
• Experience leveraging AI and automation to improve recruiting effectiveness.

What success looks like

First 90 Days

• Build a comprehensive talent map for the organization's highest-priority hiring needs.
• Establish recruiting metrics, process rigor, and hiring cadence.
• Take ownership of active recruiting searches.
• Develop trusted relationships with hiring managers and senior leaders.
• Launch a scalable recruiting operating framework.
• Evaluate and strengthen onboarding processes to improve new hire ramp-up and integration.
• Establish foundational people metrics and reporting, including headcount, hiring progress, and retention insights.

This is for a vacant role, an NDA will be required to release the name of the company. AI is not being used in evaluating candidates. No candidate profiles will be shared with the client without your explicit consent.