Title: Head of Talent Acquisition

Location: Remote (US)

Reporting Structure: Reports directly to the COO

Company Description

Our client's vision is to build the biggest AI Deployment company for National Security, which requires talent that is extremely good at problem solving, gets excited about National Security challenges, and thrives in software factories. The company is executing a mission that (1) identifies the core bottlenecks in Warfighting, Intelligence and the Enterprise, (2) assigns top talent with backgrounds in systems and machine learning engineering, and (3) finds repeatability in solution development to target similar offices across the DoW/IC. The business has 10x'd in under two years and has built trust with the senior most leaders at the Department of War and Intelligence Community.

Quick facts:

• Seed stage startup, opportunity to get in on the ground floor
• Founders have a great track record with successful exits under their belt
• Offices in NYC and Washington D.C.

Clearance Requirement: Candidates must be clearance eligible.

Responsibilities

• Full-Cycle Technical Recruiting: Own end-to-end recruitment, running high-touch candidate experiences from initial outreach, scheduling and coordinating technical screens, case studies and all interactions, to offer negotiations and closing candidates.
• Targeted Talent Acquisition: Design and execute proactive sourcing strategies to identify, engage, and pipeline top-tier technical, engineering, and specialized talent across all critical business functions.
• Engineering Partnership & Structured Assessment: Partner closely with engineering teams and technical evaluators to design interview processes that ensure fast, consistent, and objective evaluations.
• Recruiting Infrastructure & Playbooks: Build and document scalable recruiting operations from scratch, such as candidate trackers, process guides, scorecard templates, and interview workflows.
• Talent Strategy & Vendor Management: Own the talent strategy, evaluate platform/sourcing tool performance, and selectively manage external agency or staffing relationships when needed.
• Employer Branding: Work with leadership to make the company a talent magnet for top performers in the defense and intelligence communities.

Is this you?

• Proven Talent Leader who transforms ambiguity into structured recruiting strategies, backed by hands-on experience scaling teams within early-stage or high-growth startup environments.
• 0-to-1 Builder with a proven track record as a foundational talent partner — comfortable building ATS setups, playbooks, and infrastructure from scratch with minimal supervision.
• Bias for Speed: You move fast and win on rapid execution.
• Technical & Specialized Sourcing Expertise: Demonstrated success sourcing and closing hard-to-find software engineers, AI/ML specialists, and cross-functional operators.
• Hands-On & Execution-Minded: Equally comfortable at the tactical level (sourcing, scheduling, pipelines) and the strategic level (offer frameworks, executive partnership).
• Clear & Direct Communicator: Strong stakeholder management with the confidence to advise hiring managers and partner with C-suite.
• Familiarity with Clearable/Federal Hiring: Prior experience recruiting technical talent for government, defense, or intelligence agency customers.

#Perks

• Healthcare coverage: 100% employee premium and 50% dependents premium coverage of a platinum-level plan.
• 401K with 2% company match.
• Equity in a seed-stage business.
• Access to 6713 Club — a members-only club in McLean, VA.
• $500 monthly Physical and Mental Health reimbursement program.
• Flexible PTO policy.
• Competitive salary and equity compensation.
• Opportunity to work on impactful projects in the national security sector.
• Career growth and leadership opportunities in a dynamic, innovative environment.