Head of Talent Acquisition

Niantic Spatial•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Niantic Spatial is seeking a hands-on Head of Talent Acquisition to lead and execute their recruiting function. This role reports to the Chief People Officer and will serve as a strategic talent advisor to the executive team while also managing a significant portfolio of critical searches. The Head of Talent Acquisition will be responsible for full life cycle recruiting, recruiting operations, workforce planning, reporting, tools, external partners, and candidate experience. They will manage contract recruiting resources and design and build the future Talent Acquisition organization. The role emphasizes speed and quality, requiring the ability to help hiring teams identify essential capabilities and make confident decisions in deep-tech markets.

Requirements

8+ years of full life cycle recruiting experience, ideally in high-growth technology, AI, deep tech, or similarly competitive talent markets.
Experience as a hands-on Talent Acquisition leader or functional owner while personally carrying a meaningful requisition load.
Exceptional direct-sourcing ability, with a track record of engaging and closing hard-to-reach passive candidates.
Experience advising executives and senior hiring managers as a credible, pragmatic talent partner.
An AI-forward mindset, with demonstrated experience integrating AI tools into recruiting workflows to increase capacity and improve decisions.
Use technology, automation, and disciplined prioritization to manage a broad and shifting workload.
Comfort operating through ambiguity and changing priorities, and the range to move fluidly between strategy, leadership, and hands-on execution.
A bias for simplifying process, focusing assessment on what matters most, and using evidence to guide decisions.
High integrity and discretion with sensitive candidate and company information.
Bachelor's degree, or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing contract recruiters, sourcers, external partners, or internal Talent Acquisition professionals.
Experience building, developing, or scaling a Talent Acquisition team, particularly within an early-stage or pre-product-market-fit company.
Familiarity with the responsible and legally compliant use of AI and automation in recruiting.
Recruiting experience in computer vision, machine learning, robotics, geospatial technology, enterprise software, or physical AI.
Experience supporting both U.S. and international hiring.

Responsibilities

Personally run a portfolio of searches across engineering, AI/ML, research, product, go-to-market, operations, and corporate functions, including executive and highly specialized roles.
Own every stage of recruiting from intake and market mapping through sourcing, assessment, offer, close, and onboarding handoff.
Build creative sourcing strategies to find and engage exceptional passive talent in competitive markets.
Advise executives and hiring managers on role design, candidate profiles, talent availability, market dynamics, and hiring strategy.
Lead intake and search-strategy discussions to settle requirements, assessment criteria, ownership, and timelines.
Design hiring processes that balance speed, rigor, inclusion, and candidate experience.
Build structured interviews that produce real evidence, coach interviewers, keep momentum by driving timely feedback and resolving delays.
Partner with Compensation on offers that are competitive and internally consistent.
Manage contract recruiters, sourcers, search firms, and agencies, setting priorities and performance standards.
Allocate requisitions by business priority and judge partners on hiring outcomes and pipeline quality.
Define the future structure, capabilities, and operating model of Talent Acquisition, then recruit, onboard, and develop the team.
Build a recruiting culture that is accountable and focused on speed, quality, and business impact.
Own and improve recruiting processes, workflows, documentation, and service standards.
Adopt AI-enabled tools where they responsibly strengthen sourcing, assessment, engagement, and reporting.
Hold a high bar for ATS data discipline and partner with People Operations and Legal to ensure practices meet employment law, internal policy, and data privacy requirements.
Build dashboards and updates for the executive team covering pipeline health, conversion, time to fill, source effectiveness, offer acceptance, and agency spend.
Use data to find bottlenecks and improve forecasting.
Help define the employee value proposition and partner with Marketing to strengthen the company's standing in key talent markets.