Lead Recruiter

About the role

We’re hiring a Lead Recruiter to own and evolve how Valence hires at a critical stage of company growth. This is a high-ownership IC role reporting to the VP of People & Talent, with responsibility not just for executing searches, but for shaping hiring strategy, calibrating talent bar, and influencing how we make talent decisions across the company.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting across GTM (Sales, CS, Marketing) and technical roles as needed, from role definition through close
• Partner with hiring managers and leadership to define role scope, calibrate level, and align on success criteria tied to business outcomes
• Contribute to headcount planning and hiring prioritization, helping the company make informed tradeoffs on where and how to invest in talent
• Design and run structured, high-signal interview processes; drive calibration across interviewers to ensure consistent and high-quality hiring decisions
• Build proactive, high-quality pipelines through sourcing, referrals, and network mapping, with a focus on reaching top-quartile talent
• Help shape Valence's employer brand and deliver a high-touch, high-integrity candidate experience that reflects Valence’s standards, regardless of outcome
• Use funnel data (conversion rates, source quality, time-to-hire) to manage hiring performance and turn insight into action
• Bring market intelligence (talent landscape, compensation, competitor dynamics) into hiring decisions and leadership conversations
• Partner with leaders to turn what recruiting learns [about the talent market, comp, and competitors] into insight that sharpens decisions across the company

Requirements

• 8+ years of full-cycle, in-house recruiting experience in high-growth B2B SaaS or AI environments, with exposure to both GTM and technical hiring
• A clear, well-formed point of view on what great recruiting looks like - how to assess talent, design effective processes, and hold a high hiring bar
• Genuine AI fluency: a real grasp on how AI changes recruiting, and a bias toward building it into the process
• A track record of operating autonomously in ambiguous, fast-moving environments, and of building or materially improving recruiting systems
• Demonstrated success hiring high-caliber talent in competitive markets through proactive sourcing and effective closing
• Strong sourcing instincts and an actively cultivated network, you don't wait on inbound to build pipeline
• Data fluency - you understand your funnel, use metrics to guide decisions, and hold yourself accountable to outcomes
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders, including challenging assumptions and driving alignment
• Experience with Ashby (or a comparable ATS), with a commitment to maintaining clean systems and using them as a source of truth

Qualifications

• Hands-on with AI sourcing/screening/ops tooling in your day-to-day workflow
• Experience hiring the "consulting / professional-services → tech" profile, or recruiting in NYC's AI/tech market
• Founding-recruiter DNA: you've stood up recruiting as an early or first dedicated hire
• Exposure to employer-brand or talent-marketing work
• Experience partnering on compensation benchmarking and levelling

Skills

• AI fluency
• Data fluency
• Market intelligence
• Strategic thinking
• Effective communication
• Process design and improvement
• Team management

Benefits

• Competitive salary including base + bonuses
• Comprehensive health coverage (medical, dental, vision)
• Generous PTO, company-wide R&R shutdowns, and paid parental leave
• Retirement plan support for US and global employees
• Equity

Pay

ESTIMATED: $53,908 per year

Schedule

Full-time