Why this role exists
Most companies fill their first recruiting seat with someone who runs a process. We're not doing that. We've hired recruiters before who could source and coordinate but couldn't tell us who was actually good. We ended up doing the real evaluation ourselves every time, which meant the hire added activity, not leverage. This role is built to fix that specifically: we're hiring for judgment first, process second.
You'll own full-cycle recruiting across every function starting day one, and you'll build the operating system: sourcing, interview loops, scorecards. But the actual bar is narrower and harder than "can you run a process": can we trust your read on a candidate enough to act on it without redoing the work ourselves?
What you'll own
- Full-cycle recruiting (sourcing, evaluation, closing) across GTM, engineering/product, and ops.
- The recruiting operating system: ATS, interview structure, scorecards, sourcing channels, built from scratch, not inherited.
- Direct partnership with the CEO/COO and hiring managers on role scoping and hiring bar: you help set the bar, not just fill against it.
- Hiring metrics that actually inform decisions (time-to-fill, pipeline conversion, quality of hire), not vanity throughput numbers.
- Candidate experience and employer brand: often a candidate's first real signal of what working here is like.
What we're testing for
- Independent, evidence-based candidate judgment. As part of the process, you'll evaluate real, anonymized candidate profiles from our own hiring history, and we'll compare your read to what actually happened. This is the single most important thing we're screening for, more than years of experience or past titles.
- Sourcing alpha. Knowing what circles the best candidates swim in and generating conversations with great people who might be least likely to apply through LinkedIn.
- Full-cycle recruiting experience at an early-stage or fast-growing company, ideally as a founding or very early recruiting hire.
- Intelligence and clarity of thinking. During the calibration phase, for example, we're asking if you can contribute to the discovery of the ideal candidate profile.
- Range across functions: equally comfortable evaluating a growth hire and an engineer in the same week.
- A track record of delivering results and taking end-to-end responsibility for them, not just operating inside someone else's system.
- Comfort with ambiguity and founder-speed decision-making. There's no recruiting manager above you, just the CEO and COO.
Nice to have
- Recruiting experience in high growth, hardware, or consumer software subscription environments.
- Employer branding or content chops: job posts and outreach that actually convert.
- Prior experience leading or managing a recruiting team. We're growing quickly, and this role has a real path to building and leading a team, not just staying an individual contributor indefinitely.
The opportunity
This is a founding seat, not a fill-the-req seat. Whoever takes this defines how the company hires for years: the bar, the process, the tools, the brand. You'll start as an IC, closing key gaps yourself, but as we scale, there's a genuine opportunity to build and lead the recruiting team you start out running solo. If you've been the strongest recruiter in the room but never had the mandate to build the whole function your way, this is that mandate.
Reports to: COO
Location: SF/Bay Area or US Remote
Compensation: $140,000–$170,000 base
Community Phone Company