Senior Founding Recruiter

Goodfire•San Francisco, CA

2d•$120,000 - $280,000

About The Position

We're hiring a Senior Founding Recruiter to build our entire talent acquisition function as we scale. You'll be a hands-on, strategic partner to our founders, owning all hiring across AI/ML research engineering, product, and go-to-market roles. You'll perform full cycle recruiting from sourcing and screening through offer stage while building the recruiting infrastructure that will scale with us. You'll take a consultative approach, partnering with our Founders and leadership team to attract top talent. You're focused on quality over quantity and understand that in AI safety and interpretability research, small, talent-dense teams win. You'll stay embedded in the SF AI scene, maintain a warm pipeline of standout talent, and help shape who joins Goodfire as we scale.

Requirements

5-10 years of recruiting experience, with 3+ years in early-stage startup or research-intensive environments
2+ years recruiting specifically for AI/ML, research engineering, or ML infrastructure roles (strongly preferred)
Proven ability to recruit across both technical (engineering, research) AND non-technical (GTM, product, ops) roles
Sole operator experience: You've been THE recruiting function or founding recruiter before & are comfortable operating independently
Quality over quantity mindset: You measure success by quality of hires, not speed or volume. You protect the bar aggressively

Nice To Haves

Experience recruiting for frontier AI labs, LLM startups, or research heavy engineering orgs.
STEM degree (BS/MS/PhD) or equivalent technical background/fluency.
Existing network in the SF / Bay Area AI ecosystem

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end recruiting across AI/ML research scientists, research engineers, ML infrastructure, security, and non-technical roles (ops, GTM, etc) as needed
Build and maintain a proactive pipeline of top AI talent so we're never starting from zero when a role opens
Stay embedded in the AI community: actively participate in SF/Bay Area AI events, networking meetups, and conferences; maintain relationships that generate warm intros
Design interview loops, ensure bar alignment, and build recruiting infrastructure that will scale with the company while executing all IC recruiting work yourself
Protect the bar: You default to skepticism, looking for reasons candidates won't work. You're comfortable with rigorous evaluation processes (work trials, deep reference checks, behavioral interviews) and high rejection rates.