Head of Talent

Mission

Own everything talent at The Path as we scale from ~15 to 50 people in the next year. You are a hands-on, high-velocity recruiter who personally closes candidates across every function - AI researchers, government and enterprise sales, marketing, chief of staff, and everything in between - while building the process, tooling, and external recruiter network that makes hiring a company strength instead of a founder bottleneck.
Outcomes

• Close 2-3 hires per month, minimum: Personally drive candidates from sourcing through signed offer at a sustained pace of at least 2-3 closes per month across technical and non-technical roles.
• Own the full talent lifecycle: Partner with hiring managers to define scorecards, do heavy hands-on sourcing, run first-round candidate interviews, shepherd candidates through the process, and personally close - you own it end to end.
• Own and manage all external recruiters: Hire, direct, measure, and fire our sourcers, hourly recruiters, and contingency firms. Hold them to real accountability on hours, pipeline quality, and results.
• Deliver a flawless candidate experience: Every candidate interaction reflects an elite company - no double-bookings, no broken video calls, every interview recorded and reviewable, fast follow-ups, warm high-touch shepherding from first contact to signed offer.
• Build our recruiting process and tooling: Establish the internal systems - ATS, scheduling, pipeline tracking, interview processes - that make recruiting fast, measurable, and scalable.

Competencies

• Elite Closer: You are a persuasive, high-energy, aggressive recruiter who gets great people over the line - you understand what candidates want, you shepherd them skillfully, and you close.
• Rare Dual Range - Technical and GTM: You have successfully recruited both deeply technical roles (AI researchers, ML engineers, senior software engineers) and go-to-market/business roles (sales leaders, marketers, chiefs of staff). This combination is a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have, and we will wait for it.
• Player-Coach Potential: You are a senior IC who executes first. A "Head of Talent" title and eventual team are available if you have the strategic chops, but you are hired to personally recruit.
• Process Builder: You bring structure - topgrading and scorecards (à la Who), pipeline metrics, tooling decisions - and you raise the bar on how the whole company hires and interviews.
• High Integrity & Transparency: Your pipeline reports, hours, and candidate assessments are always honest and verifiable. You build trust with founders through radical transparency.
• Relentless Operator: You move fast, juggle many searches simultaneously, and never let a candidate or a search go cold.

Great to have

• Experience scaling an early-stage startup through a 2-3x headcount phase.
• Experience recruiting in AI/ML specifically, given how competitive that market is.
• A network of proven external recruiters and sourcers you can activate immediately.

Logistics

• San Francisco, hybrid (Tue-Thu in office). Not remote. Full-time employee only (not contract).
• Reports to the Founders