Head of Talent

Rhoda ai • Palo Alto, CA

40d

About The Position

At Rhoda AI, we're building the full-stack foundation for the next generation of humanoid robots — from high-performance, software-defined hardware to the foundational models and video world models that control it. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling scenarios unseen in training. We work at the intersection of large-scale learning, robotics, and systems, with a research team that includes researchers from Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and beyond. We're not building a feature; we're building a new computing platform for physical work — and with over $400M raised, we're investing aggressively in the R&D, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make that a reality.

Requirements

• 6–10+ years of experience in technical recruiting or talent leadership, with at least 2 years managing a team
• Proven track record hiring world-class engineers and researchers in AI, ML, or robotics
• Deep understanding of what top research talent cares about and how to speak their language
• Operationally strong — you can run a tight process while keeping the candidate experience warm and genuine
• Fluent with modern recruiting tools and AI-powered workflows; you're always looking for leverage
• Entrepreneurial and agency-driven — you'll be building process, not following it, and you own your outcomes
• Natural curiosity about technology; comfortable spending time with engineers and researchers and genuinely interested in what they're building
• Creative and competitive — you have a point of view on how a Series A startup wins against the best-resourced organizations in the world

Nice To Haves

• Experience recruiting PhDs or researchers from top academic programs
• Existing network in the robotics, CV, or foundation model research community
• Experience at a high-growth hardware or deep-tech startup
• Familiarity with the humanoid robotics or embodied AI landscape

Responsibilities

• Own the Recruiting Function
• Lead end-to-end hiring across research, engineering, hardware, and operations
• Manage and develop a small team of recruiters as the company scales
• Build and maintain a high-quality candidate pipeline with rigorous bar-raising standards
• Own offer strategy, closing, and candidate experience from first touch to day one
• Compete for Top Research Talent
• Develop and execute a talent strategy specifically targeting PhD researchers and ML scientists in robotics, CV, and foundation models
• Design and host events — PhD mixers, research talks, lab visits — that position Rhoda as a destination for frontier researchers
• Build relationships with top academic programs at Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, MIT, and others
• Partner with research leadership to articulate what makes Rhoda's research environment compelling and differentiated
• Drive Quality and Standards
• Define and maintain a consistent hiring bar across all roles and functions
• Build structured interview processes, rubrics, and feedback loops that reduce bias and improve signal
• Serve as a quality check on candidates — pressure-test assessments and push back when the bar isn't met
• Establish recruiting metrics and reporting to give leadership clear visibility into pipeline health and hiring velocity
• Build the Employer Brand
• Craft a compelling narrative about why top talent should choose Rhoda
• Partner with marketing and leadership on presence at key conferences (NeurIPS, ICRA, RSS, CoRL, etc.)
• Develop content and outreach strategies that make Rhoda visible and attractive to passive candidates
• Leverage AI to Move Faster
• Use AI-powered sourcing tools to identify and engage passive candidates at scale
• Automate repetitive recruiting workflows — screening, scheduling, follow-ups, pipeline reporting — to free up time for high-signal human interactions
• Build AI-assisted outreach sequences that feel personal, not automated
• Continuously evaluate and adopt new tools that improve recruiter efficiency and candidate quality
• Use data and AI-generated insights to identify pipeline gaps, drop-off points, and sourcing channel performance
• Treat your recruiting stack as a product — always iterating, always optimizing
• Build the Function
• Inherit a lite foundation (Ashby) and build on top of it — this is a molding role, not a maintenance role
• Establish recruiting processes, tooling, and workflows with an automation-first mindset
• Create onboarding frameworks that set new hires up for success
• Hire and develop the talent team as headcount grows

Benefits

• The intelligence of our robots is a direct function of the people we hire — this role sits at the center of that
• Rare opportunity to build a talent function from scratch at a well-funded, technically ambitious company at the intersection of physical AI and humanoid robotics
• Every great hire you make compounds — you'll see your work come alive in the researchers and engineers building the next generation of humanoid robots

What This Job Offers

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