A/B Testing, Air Traffic Control (ATC), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents, Candidate Sourcing, Communication Skills, Cross-Functional, Customer Relations, Grant Awards, Health Insurance, JavaScript, Leadership, Negotiation Skills, Node.js, Operations Management, Performance Metrics, PostgreSQL, Product Engineering, Python Programming/Scripting Language, Quality Control, React.js, Reporting Dashboards, Sales Pipeline, Software Engineering, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), Startup, Team Player, Top Sales Rep, Training/Teaching, Website Conversion
San Francisco, California
About the Role
A well-funded, pre-seed AI recruiting startup is looking for a Talent AI Operator to join their growing team. This is a genuinely new kind of role — you're not a traditional recruiter, and you're not a software engineer. You're the human who makes autonomous AI recruiting actually work.
The company's AI agents handle massive volume: thousands of candidates sourced, messaged, and qualified every week across a marketplace of tens of thousands of talents and hundreds of startup clients. Your job is to supervise those agents, catch edge cases, step in for high-judgment moments, and close candidates who need a human touch. Think air traffic controller, not pilot.
You'll help define what AI-native recruiting operations looks like as the company scales — this is a proving ground for high performers with a clear path into leadership.
What You'll Do
- Supervise AI agent pipelines: Monitor live candidate conversations, flag errors, and intervene when the agent needs human judgment
- Handle high-stakes moments: Senior candidates, tricky objections, compensation negotiations — the conversations where humans still win
- Train the agents: Review agent outputs, label good/bad responses, and write examples that make the AI smarter over time
- Quality control at scale: Audit candidate matches, outreach quality, and conversion rates across thousands of weekly touchpoints
- Close placements: Guide candidates through final stages, handle offers, and ensure successful hires
- Build the playbook: Document what works, create SOPs, and help define how humans and AI agents collaborate effectively
Growth Path
Strong performers can grow into:
- Account Lead: Own client relationships and agent performance for key accounts
- Agent Training Lead: Own the feedback loop that makes the AI better
- Operations Lead: Build and manage the broader operations function
What We're Looking For
Required:
- 2+ years of talent operations or recruitment experience, ideally in early-stage tech startups (pre-seed/seed)
- Strong communication and collaboration skills; comfortable working cross-functionally with product, engineering, design, and leadership
- Experience using data to inform recruitment decisions — KPIs, dashboards, A/B tests, and experiments
- Proven ability to design and optimize end-to-end recruitment processes: sourcing, screening, interview coordination, offer management, and candidate experience
- Ability to work on-site in San Francisco as needed
Nice to Have:
- Experience with AI/ML-oriented startups and an understanding of AI-focused hiring needs
- Familiarity with modern tech stacks (TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, React, Node.js, PostgreSQL) to effectively communicate with engineers
Compensation & Benefits
- Base salary + uncapped performance-based compensation tied to placements — top performers earn significantly more
- Performance-based equity: Equity grants awarded after a successful 90-day window, with potential for meaningful ownership as scope expands
- Health insurance
- Visa sponsorship available
- Optional: housing in a collaborative hackerhouse in San Francisco
Location
This role is based in San Francisco, CA with flexibility for remote work. Candidates must be willing and able to work on-site in San Francisco as needed. Visa sponsorship is available.