Head of Talent Acquisition

Cowboy Space Corp.•San Carlos, CA

5h•$184,226 - $214,231•Hybrid

About The Position

The Head of Talent Acquisition at Cowboy Space Corporation will operationally own Talent Acquisition across the company. This is a highly hands-on player-coach leadership role responsible for driving recruiting execution, recruiting operations, executive hiring, hiring process rigor, recruiting analytics, and recruiting team/vendor management during a period of rapid organizational growth. Reporting to the Head of People, this individual will lead day-to-day Talent Acquisition operations while directly supporting critical hiring efforts across engineering, manufacturing, operational, and business functions. The role will oversee recruiting infrastructure, external recruiting partnerships, and the continued development of internal recruiting capability as the company scales. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building recruiting systems and operational rigor while remaining deeply engaged in high-impact and difficult-to-fill hiring efforts. This role can be located in San Carlos or Seattle.

Requirements

8+ years of recruiting and Talent Acquisition experience, including significant technical recruiting experience
Proven experience hiring for aerospace, defense, manufacturing, robotics, hardware, energy, or other deep-tech organizations
Experience leading executive and senior-level searches in high-growth or technically complex organizations
Strong sourcing skills and comfort recruiting passive technical talent
Deep experience with recruiting analytics, funnel reporting, dashboard development, and data-driven hiring operations
Experience building or scaling recruiting operations and processes in startup or high-growth environments
Experience managing recruiters, recruiting operations, and/or external recruiting agencies
Strong operational and analytical skills with the ability to translate recruiting data into actionable hiring insights
Experience building recruiting reporting frameworks and operational dashboards for leadership teams
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate credibly with engineers, technical leaders, executives, and founders
Experience operating in ambiguous environments with evolving requirements
High ownership mindset and bias toward action
Exceptional organizational and operational skills
Startup experience (Seed–Series C) strongly preferred
Experience with ATS administration, funnel optimization, recruiting systems, and hiring process design strongly preferred
Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Nice To Haves

Startup experience (Seed–Series C) strongly preferred
Experience with ATS administration, funnel optimization, recruiting systems, and hiring process design strongly preferred

Responsibilities

Own full-cycle recruiting for technical, manufacturing, operational, executive, and business-critical roles
Carry an active req load while directly supporting the company’s most critical and high-priority hiring efforts
Lead executive and senior-level recruiting efforts across technical, operational, and business functions
Partner closely with executives, leadership, and hiring managers to define hiring needs, calibrate hiring requirements and interview expectations, prioritize hiring based on company milestones and timelines, improve hiring decision-making and interview rigor, and drive accountability throughout the hiring process
Develop targeted sourcing and outreach strategies for senior and difficult-to-fill leadership roles
Ensure rigor, confidentiality, and exceptional candidate experience throughout executive search processes
Operationally own Talent Acquisition processes, workflows, systems, and execution across the company
Build and operationalize recruiting infrastructure including ATS workflows and hygiene, interview processes and interviewer calibration, funnel tracking and reporting, recruiting metrics and dashboards, process documentation and operational workflows, and interview coordination mechanics and feedback loops
Establish scalable hiring processes and operational standards that support rapid company growth
Drive consistency in hiring processes, interviewer quality, candidate evaluation, and hiring decision-making
Identify bottlenecks and continuously improve recruiting operations, hiring efficiency, and candidate experience
Own recruiting analytics, funnel health reporting, and hiring performance visibility across the organization
Develop dashboards and reporting frameworks that enable leadership visibility into hiring progress, bottlenecks, capacity planning, and operational risk
Analyze recruiting funnel data to identify process inefficiencies, conversion challenges, and opportunities for improvement
Establish and maintain operational recruiting metrics including pipeline health, time-to-fill, stage conversion rates, interviewer load, and hiring forecast accuracy
Use recruiting data to drive accountability with hiring managers, interview teams, recruiters, and external recruiting partners
Manage and develop a growing team of recruiters and recruiting support resources as the function scales
Own external agency strategy, vendor relationships, performance management, and recruiting partner accountability
Help build stronger embedded recruiting capability internally over time
Partner closely with the Head of People on hiring strategy, organizational scaling priorities, and recruiting capacity planning
Proactively source candidates using LinkedIn, referrals, technical networks, and outbound sourcing strategies
Source from non-traditional talent pools across aerospace, defense, manufacturing, energy, robotics, and deep-tech ecosystems
Develop creative recruiting campaigns and targeted outreach
Craft and iterate on outreach messaging to improve candidate engagement and response rates
Conduct recruiter screens assessing technical depth (at a high level), ownership mindset and problem-solving ability, and fit for a fast-moving, high-accountability startup environment