Founding Recruiter_TT

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 startupA 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 seatExperience running 10+ live searches at once across different functions without dropping candidatesComfort owning offer and close conversations, including salary and equity, and explaining startup equity clearly and honestly to candidatesComfort pushing back on hiring managers or founders when a role is poorly scoped or the bar is slippingBased in San Francisco or clearly willing to work hybrid/onsite thereIdeally, experience as the first or early recruiter at a seed or Series A company, building the function from nothingIdeally, experience hiring ML, speech, or LLM researchersIdeally, a background in consumer tech, DTC, e-commerce, or hardwareIdeally, experience hiring internationally, including EOR and contractor setupsIdeally, already comfortable using AI tools to move faster on sourcing and outreachIdeally, 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 functionsBuild the ATS and hiring processes from scratchPersonally source candidates every week across 10+ parallel searchesScreen candidates and manage the pipeline end-to-end through to offerRun offer and close conversations, including salary and equity, alongside the foundersExplain startup equity clearly and honestly to candidatesTurn vague hiring needs into scorecards and structured interview plansPartner directly with founders and hiring managers on hiring strategy and bar-settingReport on funnel metrics and hiring progress