Director, Talent Acquisition

Fieldguide•San Francisco, CA

1d•Remote

About The Position

Fieldguide is entering a rapid stage of growth where talent acquisition is a competitive advantage. This role, partnering with the Senior Director, People, will scale a global recruiting function to support rapid, high-quality growth from 150 to 600+ employees across various functions including engineering and go-to-market. It is both strategic and deeply hands-on, involving designing scalable hiring systems from the ground up, supporting the building of an employer brand, and developing a recruiting team that raises the bar on every hire. This is a defining leadership role for someone who has built durable recruiting infrastructure at a high-growth AI or SaaS company, understands what great looks like across the full hiring lifecycle, and is energized by the challenge of making Fieldguide the most sought-after employer in the space. The position sits at the intersection of hiring strategy, operational excellence, and AI-native execution.

Requirements

10+ years of talent acquisition experience, including leading teams at high-growth AI or SaaS startups
Scaled organizations from the early days to 600+ employees and built the infrastructure that made that growth possible without sacrificing quality
Proven ability to partner with and influence founders, executives, and senior leaders on hiring strategy and execution
Demonstrated success designing and executing end-to-end global recruiting strategies across geographies, time zones, and competitive labor markets
Experience building employer branding or talent marketing initiatives that moved the needle on candidate quality and offer acceptance
Understanding that the brand you build in the market is a recruiting tool as much as any sourcing channel
Experience building, developing, and retaining high-performing talent acquisition teams, including developing people managers
Strong background in building scalable recruiting processes, AI tooling
Hands-on experience with Ashby is a strong plus, as you know how to configure it to give hiring managers and leadership real visibility, not just recruiters
Experience supporting new market entry and building recruiting infrastructure in regions new to the company
AI is embedded in how you work, not something you use occasionally
Built repeatable, AI-powered recruiting workflows with measurable impact in sourcing, screening, scheduling, market intelligence, or employer brand content
Critically evaluate what AI gets wrong, and own the outcomes
Led your team's AI adoption: your team works differently because of you
Comfortable with Ambiguity: energized by unclear problem spaces, make sound decisions with incomplete information, and create structure where none exists
Adaptable: recalibrate quickly, bring others along without losing momentum, and treat pivots as information rather than setbacks
Growth Mindset: motivated to get better at your craft, in recruiting, in leadership, and in how you leverage AI; seek feedback, reflect honestly, and apply it
Bias to Action: launch, get feedback, and iterate; create momentum and help others move faster too

Nice To Haves

Experience hiring for technical AI/ML roles in a competitive San Francisco market
Hands-on experience with AI sourcing or screening tools and a clear point of view on where they actually move the needle vs. add noise
Experience using compensation benchmarking tools to build and defend offer strategies in competitive markets

Responsibilities

Build, coach, and lead a high-performing, globally distributed talent acquisition team
Create a culture of ownership, data-driven continuous improvement, and high standards across the recruiting function, balancing speed and quality as the company scales
Act as a trusted advisor to founders, executives, and hiring managers, guiding hiring decisions and tradeoffs with sound judgment, market knowledge, and data
Use AI to synthesize pipeline data, team performance signals, and market intelligence into clear leadership briefings, freeing your time and your team's time for the high-judgment work that shapes hiring outcomes
Contribute to the build of a compelling employer brand that clearly articulates Fieldguide's mission, culture, and value proposition to attract top talent in the most competitive markets in the world, starting with San Francisco and expanding globally
Design candidate experiences that reflect who Fieldguide is: technically rigorous, values-driven, and genuinely differentiated from the AI companies candidates are comparing us to
Partner with Marketing and People Ops to bring the Fieldguide story to life across channels, including LinkedIn, job boards, community events, campus programs, and more
Continuously improve recruiting processes, tools, and vendor relationships to support growth and efficiency, with AI as a default accelerant, not an afterthought
Partner with People Operations on live recruiting dashboards that give leaders real-time visibility into pipeline health, hiring velocity, offer conversion, and quality of hire, and use that data to make decisions fast
Define and track meaningful recruiting metrics that surface bottlenecks, inform tradeoffs, and demonstrate the function's business impact
Stay current on market trends, particularly in technical, AI, and hard-to-hire talent areas, and translate that intelligence into sourcing and positioning strategy
Develop a deep understanding of Fieldguide's business, product, culture, and competitive position in the talent market
Build strong relationships with founders, executives, People Ops, Finance, and hiring managers
Stabilize execution on open roles and immediate pipeline gaps so no hiring momentum is lost during the transition
Map 2–3 recruiting workflows where AI can meaningfully improve quality or throughput
Clarify team structure, responsibilities, and operating cadences, and partner with business leaders to sharpen hiring planning and intake
Begin standardizing hiring practices and candidate experience across functions, and introduce early process or tooling improvements that reduce friction and increase predictability
Ship at least one repeatable AI-assisted recruiting workflow
Implement meaningful improvements to recruiting metrics, processes, and systems that measurably impact hiring speed and quality
Align leaders on a scalable global hiring model and position talent acquisition as a proactive, strategic partner to the business
Deliver a clear, data-backed talent acquisition roadmap aligned to business goals, covering near-term execution improvements and longer-term scale plans
Present your AI leverage map, what the function is using, what you've learned, and where you're taking it next
Own the talent acquisition roadmap and continuously evolve it as the business scales
Maintain operating credibility and trusted advisor status with founders and executive leadership on all things hiring
Build Fieldguide's reputation as a destination employer in San Francisco and beyond
Develop your team into the strongest recruiting organization in the industry