Technical Recruiter (Founding Team)

Pallet•San Francisco, CA

2d•$165,000 - $220,000•Onsite

About The Position

Pallet is hiring its first Lead Technical Recruiter, a high-impact individual contributor role with true ownership over how we build our engineering organization. As we scale from ~100 to 200+ employees, engineering hiring is one of the most critical levers in the business. This role will own technical recruiting end-to-end — partnering closely with our Head of Talent, engineering leadership, and founders to hire across Product, Platform, FDE, and AI/ML roles. Recruiting at Pallet is a strategic partner to the business. You’ll be embedded with engineering leadership, deeply understand our product and technical roadmap, and play a direct role in shaping the team that builds our AI agents. The impact of this role will be immediate, visible, and long-lasting.

Requirements

5–10+ years of recruiting experience, with 3+ years owning senior technical roles end-to-end.
Proven experience hiring: Senior Software Engineers, Platform / Infra / SRE Engineers, ML- or data-adjacent roles
Track record of closing senior engineers in competitive markets.
Experience operating in high-bar, founder-led or early-stage environments.
Strong technical recruiting judgment — able to spot misalignment early and maintain a low false-positive rate.
Calm, credible communicator who can sell Pallet to engineers without hype.
Comfortable with ambiguity, high ownership, and accountability for outcomes.
Low ego, collaborative, and motivated by impact rather than process for process’s sake.

Nice To Haves

Product Managers, Designers etc.
bonus if you’ve also hired: Product Managers, Designers etc.

Responsibilities

Own and close senior, high-bar engineering roles across Product, Platform, FDE, and AI/ML in competitive SF / NYC markets.
Make your first hire within ~45 days and sustain ~2 high-quality engineering hires per month thereafter.
Run end-to-end searches: scoping ambiguous roles, sourcing, pipeline management, interview coordination, and closing.
Protect and scale Pallet’s technical hiring bar through high-signal screening, thoughtful debriefs, and pushback when quality is slipping.
Build trust with senior engineering candidates through a white-glove candidate experience and calm, credible selling.
Diagnose pipeline or close issues using data and candidate feedback, and adapt strategy in real time.
Act as a true partner to engineering leadership — bringing structure, judgment, and clarity without needing hand-holding.
Increase leverage across the technical recruiting system while remaining hands-on — personally sourcing for hard roles, partnering effectively with sourcers, and strengthening referral quality and conversion.