Head of Talent Acquisition

Adelphi

8d

About The Position

Adelphi is at an inflection point and is hiring its first Head of Talent Acquisition. This is a hands-on role that will be tasked with building the team to tackle National Security challenges. This role will design and build out Adelphi’s Talent function ground-up with an engineering-first mindset, while owning the full recruitment cycle. Candidates must be clearance eligible.

Requirements

• Proven Talent Leader: A strategic self-starter who transforms ambiguity into structured recruiting strategies, backed by hands-on experience scaling teams within early-stage or high-growth startup environments.
• 0-to-1 Builder: Proven track record operating as a foundational talent partner. You are relentless about attracting exceptional talent, and will work closely with our hiring managers to brainstorm the dynamics of our customer-facing teams. You are comfortable building ATS setups, playbooks, and recruiting infrastructure from scratch with minimal supervision.
• Bias for Speed: We win on rapid execution; you like to move fast and win.
• Technical & Specialized Sourcing Expertise: Demonstrated success sourcing, engaging, and closing hard-to-find software engineers, AI/ML specialists, and cross-functional operators in competitive markets.
• Brand & Storytelling Mindset: Skilled at framing a company's mission and technical culture into a compelling candidate value proposition across outreach and talent networks.
• Hands-On & Execution-Minded: Thrives working at both the tactical level (sourcing candidates, managing pipelines, scheduling) and strategic level (crafting offer frameworks, partnering with executive leadership).
• Clear & Direct Communicator: Strong stakeholder management skills with the confidence to advise hiring managers, manage candidate expectations, and partner directly with C-suite leadership.
• Familiarity with Clearable/Federal hiring: Prior experience recruiting technical talent supporting government, defense, or intelligence agency customers with familiarity in clearable and non-clearable candidate pools.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end recruitment across Adelphi, running high-touch candidate experiences from initial outreach, scheduling and coordinating technical screens, case studies and all interactions, to offer negotiations and closing candidates.
• Design and execute proactive sourcing strategies to identify, engage, and pipeline top-tier technical, engineering, and specialized talent across all critical business functions.
• Partner closely with engineering teams and technical evaluators to design interview processes that ensure fast, consistent, and objective evaluations.
• Build and document scalable recruiting operations from scratch, such as candidate trackers, process guides, scorecard templates, and interview workflows.
• Own Adelphi’s talent strategy, evaluate platform/sourcing tool performance, and selectively manage external agency or staffing relationships when needed.
• Work closely with leadership to enhance and promote Adelphi’s brand, making us a talent magnet for top performers in the defense and intelligence communities.

Benefits

• Healthcare coverage: 100% employee premium and 50% dependents premium coverage.
• 401K with 2% company match.
• Equity in a seed-stage business.
• $500 monthly Physical and Mental Health reimbursement program.
• Access to 6713 Club - a members only club in McLean, VA.
• Unlimited time-off policy.
• Opportunity to work on impactful projects in the national security sector.
• Career growth and leadership opportunities in a dynamic, innovative environment.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed