Head of Talent

Poseidon Aerospace•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Poseidon Aerospace is seeking its first dedicated Head of Talent to lead and own the end-to-end talent function. Currently managed by the operations team, this role will inherit a functional system and report directly to the CEO. The primary focus will be on talent and people strategy, sourcing, closing, systems, and ensuring an excellent candidate experience. As the company grows, the role will expand to encompass broader people operations and organizational design, with an initial emphasis on volume, quality, and closing speed. The ideal candidate will possess a deep understanding of recruiting as a craft and a clear vision for an effective talent function.

Requirements

3+ years of recruiting experience, with significant experience hiring technical roles at a fast-growing startup or technically demanding organization.
Proven track record of personally sourcing and closing hard-to-fill roles, including senior engineering or executive hires.
Experience operating as the first or an early recruiting hire, building structure from the ground up.
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple concurrent searches across different functions without compromising quality.
Strong technical fluency, with the ability to engage engineers credibly and understand their work.
Experience with modern ATS infrastructure (Ashby preferred) and surrounding systems like scorecards, structured interviews, reference processes, and reporting.
Excellent communication and judgment, with the ability to influence founders, hiring managers, and senior candidates.

Nice To Haves

Experience recruiting in defense, aerospace, or federal-adjacent environments.
Familiarity with talent markets relevant to Poseidon's hiring needs (composites, avionics, UAS, certification, commercial and federal growth).
Prior experience supporting hardware or manufacturing organizations.
Comfort with multi-site hiring across the US, including security-cleared roles.
Experience building broader people-ops functions (comp, performance, compliance) as a company scales past 50.
Creativity and ability to "vibecode" internal tooling to improve the recruiting process.

Responsibilities

Own full-cycle recruiting across all functions, including composites engineering and manufacturing, avionics and software, business development and capture, go-to-market, federal-facing roles, and senior leadership hires.
Manage and enhance the peer-to-peer sourcing model, enabling engineers and operators to effectively engage candidates from their networks.
Proactively source candidates for hard-to-fill roles, recognizing that top talent is often not found on job boards.
Partner with the CEO, CTO, and hiring managers to define roles, calibrate scorecards, and shape organizational design.
Lead offer strategy and closing for senior and technically challenging roles, understanding candidate motivations and navigating competing offers.
Establish and maintain a high standard for candidate experience, ensuring speed and cultural alignment in all interactions.
Develop and manage programs to build talent pipelines for both early-career and experienced professionals.
Serve as a trusted advisor to leadership on workforce planning, compensation benchmarking, and people-related risks.
Over time, expand the function to include performance management, compensation structure, and broader people operations.