Contract Senior Technical Recruiter

Babylist

17h•Remote

About The Position

Babylist is hiring a Senior Technical Recruiter on a 9-month contract to own hiring across Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, and AI. This is a fixed-term role, not a contract-to-perm pipeline. The role offers real ownership at a company where 9 million families a year trust them to help navigate one of life's biggest transitions, and where the teams hired are building the product that makes that possible. The recruiter will partner directly with the Head of TA and have genuine influence over how a company scaling toward $1B hires its most critical technical talent. The requisition load is focused to allow deep dives into hard problems rather than spreading thin across volume. Responsibilities include shaping sourcing strategy, pushing back on leveling, redesigning interview loops, and running debriefs where perspective can change outcomes. The company is AI-forward in its operations, and the TA team operates with low ego, high trust, and a habit of teaching each other. This role is not suitable for those seeking a scoped execution role where strategy is owned by others, or those hoping for a quiet conversion to full-time. It is also not a fit for individuals who have mainly operated within established playbooks or prefer to avoid uncomfortable conversations when hiring manager expectations don't match the market.

Requirements

5+ years of full-cycle technical recruiting experience with deep ownership of software engineering hiring.
Proven track record closing senior or highly specialized roles.
Experience building or redesigning recruiting processes (interview loops, calibration practices, sourcing strategies) and ability to demonstrate the impact of these changes.
Knowledge of the Canadian technical talent market, including comp benchmarks, talent distribution, and strategies for competing against FAANG and well-funded startups.
Proven sourcing skills for hard-to-fill roles using multi-channel strategies beyond just posting jobs.
Ability to act as a consultative partner to hiring managers, bringing data, market perspective, and honest pushback to intake, leveling, and debriefs.
Thrives in a build-mode environment where the playbook is still being written.
Genuine curiosity about AI in recruiting and its impact on sourcing, evaluation, and daily work, while maintaining grounded human judgment.

Responsibilities

Own hiring outcomes across Engineering, Data, ML, and AI from intake through close.
Build sourcing strategies tailored to the Canadian market, including talent mapping, outbound campaigns, and referral generation for a pool that requires creativity to crack.
Lead structured intakes that define scope, leveling, and success criteria before a search starts.
Run debriefs that drive decisions, ensuring they are high-signal, well-facilitated, and hold interviewers accountable to the rubric.
Identify and fix process issues, such as stages where candidates fall off, uncalibrated rubrics, or question sets testing the wrong things.
Deliver a candidate experience that is responsive, transparent, warm, and honest about the hard parts.
Contribute beyond individual requisitions, including interview training, tooling, and employer branding.