Founding Recruiter

About PocketPocket is a Y Combinator W26 company building a premium hardware plus software product in the AI voice recorder space. We are obsessed with quality and speed. We are scaling fast across the US and Europe and building a device experience that can become the category leader.Pocket has passed $100M ARR and 300,000+ devices sold with a very small team. We're YC W26, backed by Accel, and we've hit the point where hiring is the bottleneck.We have 25+ roles to fill in the next two quarters across Engineering, Research, Marketing, Ops, Finance, GTM, and Support. Right now the founders run every search themselves. We want you to take that over and build how Pocket hires.This is not an HR role and not an agency-management role. You source, you screen, you close.Your First 90 DaysDay 30: You own every open search. ATS is live, every role has a scorecard and an interview plan, and the 5 highest-priority roles have active pipelines.Day 60: First 5+ offers signed. Founders spend time on final interviews only.Day 90: Hiring runs on a weekly rhythm with funnel numbers. You've told us what's broken in how we hire and fixed the worst of it.What You'll OwnFull-cycle recruiting for every open role: intake, sourcing, screening, offer, closeOutbound sourcing for the hard roles, from ML researchers to a Controller, not just inbound reviewTurning a founder's vague "we need someone for X" into a clear role, scorecard, and interview planOffers and closing, including salary and equity conversations, together with the foundersHiring across the US, Europe, and India: full-time, contractors, and internsThe ATS, the funnel numbers, and how Pocket shows up to candidates everywhereWhat We're Looking For4-6+ years of full-cycle recruiting, at least part of it in-house at a fast-growing startupYou've closed both technical and business roles, and you can show the numbersYou source every week, personally, and you're good at itYou can run 10+ searches in parallel without dropping candidatesYou can tell a strong candidate from a polished one, and you'll push back on us when a role is badly defined or the bar is slippingYou can explain startup equity to a candidate clearly and honestlyNice To HaveFirst or early recruiter at a seed or Series A companyExperience hiring ML / speech / LLM researchersConsumer tech, DTC, e-commerce, or hardware backgroundInternational hiring (Europe, India), EOR and contractor setupsYou already use AI tools to move faster on sourcing and outreachWhy This RoleYou build the team of a company scaling from hundreds of thousands to millions of customersYou work directly with the founders and every team lead, with no layers in betweenYou define how Pocket hires. There is no legacy process to inheritA clear path to Head of Talent / People as the function growsCompetitive salary and meaningful equity through Pocket's stock option planInterview ProcessIntro call (15 min): experience, motivation, comp expectations, locationRecruiting deep dive: your best searches, your process, your funnel numbersPractical exercise on a real Pocket role: intake, sourcing strategy, sample outreachConversations with the hiring managers you'd partner withFounders interviewReferences and offerWe move fast. Expect the whole process to take under two weeks.Apply now