Founding Technical Recruiter

Allocate•Palo Alto, CA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Allocate is hiring its first dedicated, in-house technical recruiter. This role will own the full cycle recruiting for engineering, product, and design teams. The recruiter will partner directly with founders, CTO, and engineering leaders to translate hiring needs into structured, repeatable processes. Responsibilities include running full-cycle searches, managing external recruiting partners, and designing and implementing recruiting operations such as training and scorecards. This is a hands-on, individual-contributor role in an early-stage environment.

Requirements

10+ years in talent acquisition, with direct experience owning recruiting across EPD functions (Engineering, Product, Data/Research, Design).
A track record designing and deploying structured interviewing practices, including building frameworks (behavioral question banks, scorecards, interviewer training) from scratch.
A proven, hands-on track record in outbound sourcing for hard-to-reach and hard-to-identify candidates, with deep comfort in advanced Boolean search, creative sourcing channels, and market mapping.
Experience evaluating and deploying AI-powered sourcing and recruiting tools.
Experience managing or coordinating external recruiting partners/agencies alongside internal pipelines.
A track record building talent/employer branding and talent communities.
Experience building consistent, scalable talent operations, including workflows, reporting, and process infrastructure.
Comfort operating as a function of one in an early-stage environment.
A demonstrated commitment to inclusive hiring practices and diverse candidate pipelines.
Experience with ATS selection, implementation, or migration is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

Own full-cycle recruiting across engineering, product, and design teams, from role scoping and sourcing strategy through offer and close, including senior roles and specialized searches.
Design and run structured interview processes, including interviewer-specific guides, behavioral question banks, and scorecards mapped to role competencies.
Coach and train hiring managers and interviewers to build internal hiring capability.
Manage external recruiting partners and agencies, ensuring consistent candidate experience and process discipline.
Own advanced outbound sourcing, identifying and accessing hard-to-find, passive, and hard-to-reach candidates for niche or highly competitive roles.
Build and own sourcing strategy, including advanced Boolean/direct sourcing and evaluating/deploying AI-powered tools.
Shape Allocate's talent and employer brand by developing compelling stories, positioning, and candidate-facing materials.
Partner with the internal People team on talent and people operations, including recruiting workflows, reporting, and process discipline.
Champion an inclusive, high-integrity hiring process as a founding value.