Founding Recruiter_TT

Job Description

Job Description

We're looking for a Founding Recruiter to take over full-cycle hiring at a fast-growing AI hardware startup that has just passed $100M in annual recurring revenue. You'll build the ATS and hiring processes from scratch, taking ownership of recruiting away from the founders so they can focus on running the business. This is a hands-on seat: you'll personally source, screen, and close candidates across engineering, research, and go-to-market roles, running 10+ searches in parallel. You'll partner directly with founders on offer and close conversations, including salary and equity, and need to be comfortable explaining startup equity clearly and honestly. The company is scaling fast across the US and Europe with 25+ open roles over the next two quarters, so this role carries real urgency and real impact. It's a founding seat with a clear path to Head of Talent as the function grows.

Details:
Schedule: Full time
Location: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid)
Start: ASAP
Duration: Long-term
English: Fluent
Type of collaboration: Internal Employment

About the project:
The company is a fast-growing AI hardware startup that recently crossed $100M in annual recurring revenue while still operating with a very small team. Backed by a well-known venture fund, it's scaling rapidly across the US and Europe and needs to fill more than 25 roles across engineering, research, and go-to-market functions over the next two quarters. Today, every search is run directly by the founders, which has become a real bottleneck to growth. There's no ATS or structured hiring process in place yet, so this is a genuine build-from-scratch opportunity. The role sits close to leadership, with direct input into how the company scales its team and interview processes. As the company keeps growing, this function is expected to expand into a full talent team.

You have:

• 4-6+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, including time in-house at a fast-growing startup
• A track record of personally closing both technical roles (engineering, ML/research) and business roles (marketing, finance, GTM, ops)
• Hands-on, weekly sourcing experience — this is not an inbound-review or agency-management seat
• Experience running 10+ live searches at once across different functions without dropping candidates
• Comfort owning offer and close conversations, including salary and equity, and explaining startup equity clearly and honestly to candidates
• Comfort pushing back on hiring managers or founders when a role is poorly scoped or the bar is slipping
• Based in San Francisco or clearly willing to work hybrid/onsite there
• Ideally, experience as the first or early recruiter at a seed or Series A company, building the function from nothing
• Ideally, experience hiring ML, speech, or LLM researchers
• Ideally, a background in consumer tech, DTC, e-commerce, or hardware
• Ideally, experience hiring internationally, including EOR and contractor setups
• Ideally, already comfortable using AI tools to move faster on sourcing and outreach
• Ideally, has owned an ATS end-to-end (Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever) and can report on funnel numbers

What to do:

• Take over full-cycle recruiting from the founders across engineering, research, and go-to-market functions
• Build the ATS and hiring processes from scratch
• Personally source candidates every week across 10+ parallel searches
• Screen candidates and manage the pipeline end-to-end through to offer
• Run offer and close conversations, including salary and equity, alongside the founders
• Explain startup equity clearly and honestly to candidates
• Turn vague hiring needs into scorecards and structured interview plans
• Partner directly with founders and hiring managers on hiring strategy and bar-setting
• Report on funnel metrics and hiring progress