Head of Talent/Talent Lead

About the role

We're building an AI-native teammate that works inside the tools your team already uses, connects across your entire stack, and handles real work across finance, marketing, ops, and engineering. The goal: replace half your SaaS stack with a single coworker.

This is the first dedicated talent role at an early-stage AI company building autonomous agents to replace the SaaS stack. You will own talent end-to-end across two fast-growing AI companies, scaling the team from 20 to 100+ across NYC, Warsaw, and Munich. This is not a "manage a team of recruiters" role — you'll be sourcing, screening, and closing top 1% talent yourself while building the system that lets us 5x the team without lowering the bar. Every hire goes through you. You work directly with the founders as a hands-on, full-cycle recruiter and system-builder.

Responsibilities

• Run full-cycle hiring for engineering, GTM, and operations roles across NYC, Warsaw, and Munich.
• Source proactively — outbound is the default, inbound is a bonus. Build target lists, write outreach that gets replies, run your own pipeline.
• Design the hiring system from scratch: AI workflows, scorecards, interview loops, calibration, ATS setup, referral programs, employer brand — built to scale from 20 to 100+.
• Close candidates. Negotiate offers. Sell the mission, the product, the equity, the team.
• Partner with founders on org design — who we hire next, when, and why.
• Own talent metrics: time-to-hire, source quality, offer acceptance, retention at 6 months.

Success metrics

• Founders trust your shortlist without re-screening.
• Hires you've made are still here, still shipping, 12 months in.
• The hiring system runs without you having to be in every loop — but you still are, because you want to be.
• We're hiring faster than competitors and losing fewer candidates at offer stage.

How we work

• Small team, high trust, minimal process — but the process you build for talent will be the exception.
• Decisions are made by owners, not committees. You own talent.
• Onsite in NYC — hiring is a contact sport and the best calibration happens at the whiteboard, not over Zoom.
• Expect to run your first search in week one.
• You'll work inside products that are already changing how teams operate — you'll see that firsthand from day one.

Requirements

• NYC-based, onsite with the founders (strictly on-site in New York City).
• Experience setting up a hiring function from scratch at a high-growth startup.
• Ability to hire across engineering, GTM, and ops.
• Experience with AI workflows, scorecards, interview loops, ATS setup.
• High taste for talent; ability to recognize A-players.
• Existing work authorization for the United States (no visa sponsorship or relocation support offered).

Qualifications

• Was the first or second talent hire at a successful, high-growth tech startup.
• Experience scaling a company from
• Demonstrable track record of high-quality outbound sourcing for competitive engineering roles.
• Has personally built and implemented recruiting systems (ATS, scorecards, AI workflows) from zero.
• Experience hiring for other AI or autonomous agent companies.
• Experience with international hiring, specifically in Europe (Poland, Germany).
• Familiarity with using AI tools within the recruiting workflow.
• Experience partnering directly with founders on organizational design and headcount planning.
• A strong existing network of talent in the AI/ML space.
• High agency and ownership mindset.
• Exceptional sales and closing skills.
• High standards and an intuitive "taste" for top talent.
• Bias for action and execution-focused.
• Ability to operate with high trust and minimal process.
• Strong conviction and ability to partner with/push back on founders.

Red flags

• Experience is primarily in managing teams of recruiters, with no recent hands-on sourcing.
• Only has experience within large, established corporate environments.
• Not currently based in NYC or unwilling to work onsite full-time.
• Primarily an inbound or agency recruiter without in-house system-building experience.
• Describes their primary skill as "strategy" rather than "execution".