Head of Talent

About this role

MISSION

Own everything talent at The Path as we scale from ~15 to 50 people in the next year. You are a hands-on, high-velocity recruiter who personally closes candidates across every function — AI researchers, government and enterprise sales, marketing, chief of staff, and everything in between — while building the process, tooling, and external recruiter network that makes hiring a company strength instead of a founder bottleneck.

OUTCOMES

- Close 2–3 hires per month, minimum: Personally drive candidates from sourcing through signed offer at a sustained pace of at least 2–3 closes per month across technical and non-technical roles.

- Own the full talent lifecycle: Partner with hiring managers to define scorecards, do heavy hands-on sourcing, run first-round candidate interviews, shepherd candidates through the process, and personally close — you own it end to end.

- Own and manage all external recruiters: Hire, direct, measure, and fire our sourcers, hourly recruiters, and contingency firms. Hold them to real accountability on hours, pipeline quality, and results.

- Deliver a flawless candidate experience: Every candidate interaction reflects an elite company — no double-bookings, no broken video calls, every interview recorded and reviewable, fast follow-ups, warm high-touch shepherding from first contact to signed offer.

- Build our recruiting process and tooling: Establish the internal systems — ATS, scheduling, pipeline tracking, interview processes — that make recruiting fast, measurable, and scalable.

COMPETENCIES

- Elite Closer: You are a persuasive, high-energy, aggressive recruiter who gets great people over the line — you understand what candidates want, you shepherd them skillfully, and you close.

- Rare Dual Range — Technical and GTM: You have successfully recruited both deeply technical roles (AI researchers, ML engineers, senior software engineers) and go-to-market/business roles (sales leaders, marketers, chiefs of staff). This combination is a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have, and we will wait for it.

- Player-Coach Potential: You are a senior IC who executes first. A "Head of Talent" title and eventual team are available if you have the strategic chops, but you are hired to personally recruit.

- Process Builder: You bring structure — topgrading and scorecards (à la Who https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345504194?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback), pipeline metrics, tooling decisions — and you raise the bar on how the whole company hires and interviews.

- High Integrity & Transparency: Your pipeline reports, hours, and candidate assessments are always honest and verifiable. You build trust with founders through radical transparency.

- Relentless Operator: You move fast, juggle many searches simultaneously, and never let a candidate or a search go cold.

GREAT TO HAVE

- Experience scaling an early-stage startup through a 2–3x headcount phase.

- Experience recruiting in AI/ML specifically, given how competitive that market is.

- A network of proven external recruiters and sourcers you can activate immediately.

LOGISTICS

- San Francisco, hybrid (Tue–Thu in office). Not remote. Full-time employee only (not contract).

- Reports to the Founders

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