Founding Talent Lead

Join us and help shape the future of AI by defining the narrative around document understanding.

ABOUT LLAMAINDEX

LlamaIndex is building the document infrastructure layer for AI agents- from industry-leading document OCR with LlamaParse to workflow products that help enterprises automate knowledge work over documents.

We’re growing quickly, and the way we hire over the next few years will shape the company we become. We’re looking for someone who can help us build a high-quality, high-velocity hiring engine from the ground up.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We’re looking for a senior Talent Leader to build our recruiting function from 0 to 1. We’re past the earliest stage as a company, but still early in how we operate talent: the systems, standards, rituals, tools, and hiring muscle are still being built.

This is a hands-on, player-coach role. You’ll set the strategy, build the infrastructure, and personally run searches for our most critical and hardest-to-fill roles. Your primary focus will be technical hiring across AI/ML, infrastructure, full-stack engineering, and developer tools, with company-wide coverage across GTM, marketing, and operations.

This is not a purely strategic or management-track role. We want someone who is exceptional at the craft of recruiting and excited to architect the engine around it.

WHAT YOU’LL BUILD

• A repeatable, high-precision hiring engine across technical and non-technical roles, including sourcing playbooks, structured interview processes, scorecards, and calibration standards.
• A modern recruiting stack, including configuring, optimizing, and instrumenting Ashby and AI-powered sourcing tools so the funnel is fast, measurable, and high-quality.
• Hiring manager enablement across engineering, product, GTM, and leadership, helping teams define roles clearly, calibrate quickly, and run consistent, high-signal interview loops.
• An employer brand and candidate experience that reflect who we are and help us convert exceptional passive talent.
• A data-driven hiring operating rhythm, including pipeline metrics, conversion rates, time-to-fill, source effectiveness, and the leadership cadence to act on what the data shows.

WHAT YOU’LL OWN

• Full-cycle recruiting for our most critical and specialized roles, from search strategy through close.
• Company-wide hiring strategy and capacity planning in partnership with founders and leadership, translating roadmap and headcount needs into an executable hiring plan.
• Hiring quality and consistency across the company. You’ll be the steward of the bar and the person who helps teams make better hiring decisions.
• Build-vs-buy decisions on agencies and external partners, including when to scale support up or down, how to manage budgets, and how to hold partners accountable.
• Responsible use of AI in recruiting. You know AI can expand reach and speed, but judgment, calibration, and candidate quality matter more than volume. You’ll set the standard for how we use AI tools without letting automation run unchecked.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

• 7+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, ideally as an early or founding recruiter at a high-growth startup.
• A strong track record hiring niche technical talent across AI/ML, infrastructure, platform engineering, or developer tools.
• Experience building recruiting infrastructure from scratch: sourcing systems, interview loops, scorecards, calibration rituals, and hiring metrics.
• Strong talent judgment, with the ability to deliver high-precision slates and reduce calibration cycles with hiring managers.
• Comfort operating across functions, from technical hiring to GTM, marketing, and operations roles.
• Fluency with modern sourcing and AI recruiting tools, with strong judgment around quality, signal, and automation.
• High ownership, grit, and communication skills with founders, hiring managers, candidates, and external partners.
• Nice to have: familiarity with AI/ML, open-source developer communities, developer tools, or agency/vendor management.

LOCATION

This role is in-person at our downtown San Francisco office. As the person building our talent function, being on-site matters. You’ll need to absorb the culture firsthand, stay close to the teams you’re hiring for, host candidates, and build trust with founders and hiring managers in real time.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

LlamaIndex does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, employees, or any other organization location. LlamaIndex is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.