Overview

Hiring is the highest-leverage work right now — and progress is slower than needed. The organization is looking for a Fractional Recruiter to own the recruiting function end-to-end — the recruiter, not an agency. This person will manage the hiring pipeline, know every active requisition cold, and be accountable for outcomes. You will work directly with founders and hiring managers across both specialized technical roles (e.g., customer-facing engineers, solutions engineers) and operational roles (product managers, delivery leads).

This is a fractional role with a flexible commitment (roughly half- to full-time) and full ownership of the hiring function. If you run or have run a recruiting practice and want to focus deeply on one ambitious early-stage company rather than juggling many clients, this role is intended for you.

Responsibilities

• Own the pipeline end-to-end: sourcing, screening, scheduling, and shepherding candidates to offer.
• Source across the stack: deploy distinct playbooks for technical and non-technical talent pools.
• Build a reliable funnel: standardize intake, track candidates in one place, and provide regular visibility into what’s moving and what’s stuck.
• Calibrate with hiring managers: run intake meetings that clarify must-haves versus nice-to-haves; push back when requisitions are unclear.
• Screen with judgment: conduct first-round screens covering motivation, communication, fundamentals, and fit for an early-stage, high-ambiguity environment.
• Close candidates: tell the organization’s story convincingly to senior candidates; quarterback offers and prevent late-stage drop-off.
• Build the hiring operating system: create light, durable infrastructure — ATS hygiene, scorecards, interview loops — so each hire is faster than the last.

Qualifications

• 5+ years full-cycle recruiting with meaningful in-house experience at startups; you’ve owned a function, not just filled a requisition list.
• Experience closing both technical and non-technical roles and the ability to speak credibly about engineering candidates.
• Comfortable hiring for AI, data, and enterprise software roles; technical depth is not required — founders will support technical calibration — but you should understand distinctions between customer-facing engineers and backend software engineers. Experience recruiting at applied AI or data infrastructure companies is a strong plus.
• Strong sourcing skills: professional sourcing platforms, referral programs, adjacent-company mining, and outreach that gets replies.
• Operator mindset: you think in funnels, conversion rates, and time-to-close — not just “candidates submitted.”
• High trust and high communication: stakeholders do not need to chase you for status updates.
• Experience running a fractional or contract recruiting practice and delivering outsized output within defined hours.

Nice to have:

• In-house recruiting experience at early-stage startups.
• Experience hiring customer-facing engineers or solutions engineers at applied-technology organizations.