Founding People & Talent Lead
About the Role
A fast-growing, seed-stage AI company in Munich is hiring a Founding People & Talent Lead to build the Talent and People function from scratch. This is a high-impact, hands-on founding role working directly alongside the founding team to solve the single most critical scaling challenge for a high-growth AI business operating in a large, underserved market.
The company automates inside sales processes — quoting, order handling, and customer inquiries — for distributors and manufacturers using enterprise-grade AI. With strong early traction across the DACH region and backing from top-tier investors, the team is now ready to scale headcount rapidly and needs a sharp, high-agency operator to own that journey end-to-end.
Early emphasis will be heavily on Talent Acquisition, with increasing scope into broader People operations as the company grows.
What You'll Do
Build and own the full hiring engine — leading recruiting end-to-end from role definition through to offer and close.
Source and close exceptional candidates across functions, spending the majority of your time on talent early on.
Design and scale recruiting processes, analytics, workflows, and operating rhythms that enable fast, high-quality hiring.
Partner with founders and team leads to define role expectations, calibrate hiring decisions, and challenge org design.
Shape People systems over time, including onboarding, performance calibration, career progression frameworks, and compensation benchmarking.
Develop and execute an employer brand strategy to attract top talent across the DACH region and beyond.
Build and nurture a talent network across universities, startups, and technical communities.
Leverage AI tools and experiment continuously with new recruiting workflows to increase hiring velocity and quality.
Champion a high hiring bar and implement scalable measures to maintain standards as the company grows.
Contribute actively to company culture and hire with a long-term retention and development lens.
What We're Looking For
Must-have:
2–5 years of experience with meaningful time in Talent Acquisition, People, or org development at a high-growth startup or scaleup.
Demonstrated experience leading end-to-end recruiting across all functions (role definition, sourcing, assessment, closing) — ideally in a hypergrowth context (e.g. 10→50 or 30→100 employees).
Structured thinker who can design systems and execute them independently (design, implement, iterate).
Strong storytelling and relationship-building skills with a track record of sourcing and closing senior candidates.
Daily user of AI tools with a genuine curiosity to experiment with new workflows.
Ability to build employer branding and a talent network to attract top candidates in the DACH region and beyond.
Full professional fluency in English.
Comfortable with on-site work in Munich and a high-agency, ambiguous environment.
Nice-to-have:
German language skills (a meaningful plus for DACH hiring and employer branding).
Experience with performance calibration and compensation benchmarking as part of scaling People operations.
Background or strong interest in B2B SaaS or AI/enterprise software environments.
Openness to growing into a broader People leadership role as the company scales.
Location & Work Arrangement
This role is based on-site in Munich, Germany. The team works together in person and this role is expected to be present in the office. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation details were not specified for this role. You will work as a core founding team member at a well-funded, early-stage company with significant scope for ownership, career growth, and impact.