Lead Recruiter, Production

Divergent is building the new industrial age. Every day, our teams design, manufacture, and assemble advanced systems for some of the world’s most demanding industries. Our integrated engineering and manufacturing platform transforms complex designs into production-ready solutions, helping customers move faster, build smarter, and deliver critical systems when they matter most. Divergent is a qualified Tier 1 supplier to global automotive OEMs and supports leading U.S. aerospace and defense companies.

Join us and help push the boundaries of what can be built.

Purpose

Divergent is seeking a Lead Recruiter, Production to serve as a player-coach for our Production Recruiting team. This role combines hands-on recruiting with day-to-day leadership of the recruiters responsible for hiring the skilled talent that supports our production operations.

The Lead Recruiter will personally own and fill production requisitions while helping the team prioritize hiring needs, build strong talent pipelines, remove recruiting roadblocks, and deliver against aggressive hiring goals. This person will partner closely with Production leadership and hiring managers to ensure recruiting resources are aligned with the most critical operational needs.

This is a hands-on leadership role for an experienced production recruiter who enjoys recruiting, developing others, and operating in a fast-paced advanced manufacturing environment.

The Role

Production Recruiting

• Own full-cycle recruiting for a portfolio of production positions from intake through offer and close.
• Recruit across roles such as CNC Machinists, Production Technicians, Manufacturing Technicians, Quality Inspectors, Metrology Technicians, Maintenance Technicians, Material Handlers, Production Supervisors, and other skilled production positions.
• Develop targeted sourcing strategies for high-volume, difficult-to-fill, and specialized production talent.
• Proactively source candidates through LinkedIn, recruiting platforms, referrals, trade and technical schools, workforce programs, career fairs, community partnerships, and other relevant channels.
• Conduct recruiter screens to assess relevant experience, technical qualifications, schedule availability, compensation expectations, work authorization requirements, and overall alignment with the role.
• Build and maintain talent pipelines for recurring and anticipated production hiring needs.
• Partner with hiring managers to establish clear requirements, candidate profiles, interview processes, and recruiting timelines.
• Manage candidates throughout the recruiting process and provide a high-quality candidate experience through offer acceptance.

Team Leadership & Coaching

• Provide day-to-day leadership, coaching, and direction to the Production Recruiting team while maintaining an individual requisition load.
• Help recruiters prioritize workloads based on business-critical hiring needs, hiring timelines, and available recruiting capacity.
• Coach recruiters on sourcing strategy, candidate assessment, hiring manager partnership, pipeline management, and candidate closing.
• Regularly review recruiter pipelines and activity to identify gaps, aging requisitions, stalled candidates, and searches requiring additional support.
• Jump into sourcing, screening, candidate management, or hiring manager discussions when additional support is needed to move critical searches forward.
• Establish consistent recruiting practices, expectations, and service levels across the Production Recruiting team.
• Support the onboarding, training, and development of recruiters and recruiting team members.
• Create a collaborative team environment where recruiters share talent, sourcing strategies, market intelligence, and best practices.

Production Leadership Partnership

• Serve as a key recruiting partner to Production leadership and front-line hiring managers.
• Lead and support recruiting intake meetings to ensure clear alignment on candidate requirements, technical qualifications, interview processes, and hiring urgency.
• Establish regular recruiting cadence meetings with key Production leaders to review priorities, pipelines, aging requisitions, upcoming hiring needs, and roadblocks.
• Provide hiring managers with visibility into talent availability, candidate pipelines, recruiting activity, and market challenges.
• Coach hiring managers on effective candidate evaluation, interviewing, timely feedback, and recruiting best practices.
• Escalate hiring risks, capacity constraints, and process bottlenecks when appropriate.
• Adjust recruiting resources and sourcing strategies as production hiring priorities change.

Recruiting Operations & Performance

• Use recruiting data to evaluate team performance and identify opportunities to improve recruiting speed and effectiveness.
• Monitor metrics such as time to fill, time in stage, pipeline health, sourcing activity, offer acceptance, aging requisitions, and progress against hiring plans.
• Ensure candidate and requisition activity is accurately and consistently maintained in Greenhouse.
• Partner with Recruiting leadership on recruiting capacity, prioritization, workforce planning, and process improvements.
• Identify opportunities to improve production recruiting through technology, automation, AI, sourcing tools, events, partnerships, and more efficient workflows.
• Maintain consistent candidate assessment and recruiting standards across Production hiring.

Basic Qualifications

• Ability to lawfully access information and technology that is subject to US export controls
• 6+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, with significant experience supporting production, manufacturing operations, skilled trades, or technician hiring.
• Demonstrated experience recruiting for positions such as CNC Machinists, Production or Manufacturing Technicians, Quality Inspectors, Metrology Technicians, Maintenance Technicians, Production Supervisors, or similar roles.
• Experience leading, mentoring, or providing day-to-day direction to recruiters.
• Strong sourcing skills with the ability to personally identify and engage both active and passive candidates.
• Experience managing high-volume hiring alongside difficult-to-fill skilled production searches.
• Strong hiring manager partnership and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience using an applicant tracking system such as Greenhouse.
• Ability to use recruiting data and pipeline metrics to identify problems and drive action.
• Strong communication, organization, judgment, and follow-through.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience recruiting in advanced manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, defense, industrial technology, or hardware environments.
• Experience recruiting in a high-growth or rapidly scaling production environment.
• Experience recruiting skilled production talent in Southern California or another highly competitive manufacturing market.
• Experience building recruiting partnerships with trade schools, technical programs, workforce organizations, military/veteran programs, and community organizations.
• Experience with production hiring events, career fairs, high-volume sourcing campaigns, or other scalable recruiting strategies.
• Previous experience as a Lead Recruiter, Recruiting Lead, or similar player-coach role.

Pay Range

$126,160—$173,470 USD

What We Offer:

• Holistic Compensation Package: Enjoy a world-class compensation package that includes a competitive salary, equity plan, and discretionary results-based incentive bonus opportunities, ensuring you're truly valued for your contributions.
• Wellness and Time Off: Embrace a healthy lifestyle with paid vacation, sick time, and company holidays, including a year-end shutdown to recharge. We support growing families with paid parental leave, recognizing the importance of bonding time.
• Comprehensive Health and Wellness: Prioritize your well-being with our comprehensive health and wellness benefits, offering both HMO and Premium PPO options. Additionally, benefit from company-sponsored life insurance and short and long-term disability coverage for peace of mind.
• Investment in Growth: We're committed to your professional development. Take advantage of reimbursement opportunities for learning and development initiatives, empowering you to continuously expand your skill set and reach peak performance.
• Collaborative and High-Performing Environment: Join our collaborative, dynamic, and high-performing team within a fast-paced, mission-driven company. Together, we're disrupting the traditional manufacturing industry, fostering innovation, and integrating people and technology to reduce our footprint.

Equal Employment Opportunity
Divergent is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or veteran status, or any other applicable state or federal protected characteristic. Divergent provides affirmative action in employment for qualified Individuals with Disabilities and Protected Veterans in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act.
EEO Poster

In order to adjust to changes in our business, it may become necessary to add, remove or modify certain duties and responsibilities, or to reassign you to another job position. From time to time you may be asked to work on special projects or to assist with other work. Your cooperation and assistance in performing such additional work is expected.

No agencies, no solicitations, and no calls please.