Founding Recruiter
Own the talent engine from day one.
Confidential Enterprise AI Agent Startup · New York, NY
This company is solving one of the hardest problems in enterprise AI: models are intelligent but generic, while every business runs on specific processes that live in people's heads, stale documents, and ticket histories. It builds AI agents that reverse-engineer how a business actually operates — learning from existing systems to create executable, white-box knowledge that agents can act on.
Backed by Top-Tier VC Firms, the company raised a Series A ($23.8M) and came out of stealth in early March 2025. It already counts several Fortune 500 and household-name enterprise customers, and was founded by experienced technical leaders from a leading enterprise data company.
"You'll own the entire talent engine from scratch — sourcing, ops, screening — partnering directly with founders at a company doubling headcount every six months."
We are looking for a Founding Recruiter with 4+ years of experience to be the first dedicated talent hire at a Series A AI infrastructure company. You'll be the sole owner of recruiting, responsible for helping the company double headcount every six months — primarily by sourcing and closing exceptional engineers in New York. This is a sourcing-heavy, builder's role: no separate sourcing function, no rec-ops team — just you, partnering directly with the founders.
- Own end-to-end technical recruiting with a heavy emphasis on outbound sourcing across LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, Twitter, and Reddit to fill 4–5 engineering roles per month
- Conduct initial technical screens to assess candidates' relevance — evaluating language experience, AI background, and fit before passing to engineering
- Build the entire recruiting infrastructure from scratch: ATS (Ashby), sourcing workflows, interview loops, and candidate experience
- Sit with founders and hiring managers in-office to participate in real-time hiring decisions and calibration
- Balance the engineering team between New York and London, with immediate priority on growing the New York engineering headcount
- 2–5 years of experience sourcing and closing engineering hires at high-growth tech startups
- Sourced and closed ML, infra, or backend engineering roles
- Can technically screen engineers (languages, AI relevance)
- Built recruiting ops from scratch (ATS, pipelines, scorecards)
- Hungry, outbound-driven self-starter who thrives without structure
- Comfortable sustaining a 4–5 hires per month pace
- Has experience recruiting engineers at early-stage startups (Series A/B)
- Expert sourcer on GitHub, Twitter, Reddit — beyond LinkedIn
- Must be based in New York, in-office 5 days/week
- Experience recruiting in both US and UK markets
- Technical academic background
- Big tech background only (Meta, Google) — not hungry enough
- Agency-only background with zero in-house experience
- Relies on inbound pipelines rather than outbound sourcing
Initial Screen — Head of Operations
First conversation assessing baseline fit, sourcing background, and recruiting philosophy.
CEO Interview
Direct conversation with the CEO evaluating ownership mentality, hustle, and fit for a builder's role with direct founder access.
On-Site
In-person visit to the New York office to meet the team and finalize fit.
