We are a well-funded, early-stage AI lab focused on building the next generation of frontier multimodal AI models. Founded by former DeepMind researchers, including Andrew Dai, who was previously a leader on Gemini. Our team currently consists of 14 world-class scientists and engineers. We recently raised $55M in seed funding from Striker Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Altimeter Capital, and NVIDIA. We are tackling some of the hardest problems in artificial intelligence, and we are growing fast.
To achieve our ambitious mission, we need to continue bringing the brightest minds in AI research, distributed systems, and engineering onto our team. That’s where you come in. We believe that the best companies require the best people, and we’re looking for a founding recruiter who shares that conviction.
The RoleThis is a unique opportunity to be the first recruiter at Elorian. As our first dedicated Talent Acquisition hire, you will be the architect of our hiring engine. You will work directly with the founders to define our talent strategy, build out our recruitment processes from scratch, and scale our team with exceptional individuals.
This is not a standard recruiting role. You will be hunting for some of the rarest and most sought-after talent in the world, people working at top AI labs, premier academic institutions, and elite tech companies. You will need to be strategic, deeply embedded in the AI ecosystem, and capable of compellingly articulating our vision to top-tier candidates.
This role is for someone who thrives in ambiguity, loves the craft of technical recruiting, and wants to leave a lasting mark on a company at its earliest stage.
What You Will DoFull-Cycle Recruiting: Own the end-to-end recruitment process for technical (Research Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, Systems Engineers) and with the potential to expand to non-technical roles.
Strategic Sourcing: Proactively identify and creatively engage passive, top-tier talent in the highly competitive frontier AI landscape.
Process Building: Scale our ATS, interview panels, and candidate evaluation frameworks to ensure an unbiased, efficient, and exceptionally high-bar hiring process.
Founder Partnership: Act as a strategic advisor to the founders. Help define role requirements, calibrate compensation, and shape the company’s organizational structure as we grow.
Candidate Experience: Design a world-class candidate experience that reflects our company’s culture at every touchpoint. From the first outreach to the closing conversation, ensure every candidate feels valued and respected.
Employer Branding: Help establish our identity in the market. Organize events, manage our presence in the AI community, and build a talent pipeline for the future.
Experienced: You have 5+ years of experience in technical recruiting, with a strong track record of hiring for AI, ML, or deep tech roles at a high-growth startup or a major tech company.
Have a Strong Network: You have a deep understanding of the AI ecosystem and know how to find and engage talent from top labs (e.g., DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta MSL) and leading universities.
A Closer: You have a proven ability to close highly sought-after candidates in competitive markets navigate complex compensation packages (salary + early-stage equity), and handling competing offers
Scrappy & Autonomous: You thrive in ambiguity. You don’t need a massive recruiting coordination team behind you to get things done; you are happy to roll up your sleeves and build from the ground up.
Technically Literate: You don't need to write CUDA kernels, but you understand the difference between a pre-training researcher, an alignment scientist, and an ML infrastructure engineer.
Mission-Driven: You are genuinely passionate about the future of AI and want to play a pivotal role in building a company that pushes the boundaries of what is possible.
Impact: Ground-floor opportunity to build the culture and team of a frontier AI lab with direct partnership with leadership on every search.
Meaningful Equity: Significant equity ownership in a fast-growing, well-funded startup with real, substantial upside
Competitive Salary: Top-of-market compensation package.
Health & Wellness: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
Flexibility: Flexible PTO and a trusting, output-driven work environment.
Skills Required
- 5+ years of technical recruiting experience
- Proven track record hiring for AI, ML, or deep tech roles at high-growth startups or major tech companies
- Deep network and understanding of the frontier AI ecosystem (top labs and leading universities)
- Demonstrated ability to close highly sought-after candidates and navigate complex compensation (salary + early-stage equity)
- Experience building recruitment processes, scaling ATS, interview panels, and candidate evaluation frameworks
- Strong autonomy and ability to operate in ambiguous, early-stage environments
- Technical literacy sufficient to evaluate and discuss roles like pre-training researcher, alignment scientist, and ML infrastructure engineer
What We Do
Elorian is an early-stage AI research lab founded by former DeepMind and Apple researchers. They are focused on building the next generation of frontier multimodal AI models with a specific emphasis on advanced visual reasoning. By moving beyond text-centric LLMs, they aim to enable AI to understand the spatial and structural complexity of the physical world, pushing the boundaries toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) for applications in robotics, science, and industry.
