Founding Recruiting Lead

Show

Open 59d

What is SilkTalent?

SilkTalent is an AI native recruiting firm. We back the best independent and agency recruiters with best-in-class recruiting tools and custom-built products proven to drive higher response rates and faster fills. Run more searches, close more clients, and keep the upside of the business you build. In short: your book, your clients, our technology and capital behind you.

Why Join?

Top investors: Raised $5M+ from top investors including Y Combinator, SoftBank, and top execs from Instacart, Twitter, General Catalyst, Asana, and Ramp
Rapid growth: We’ve doubled revenue monthly since launch, and are already profitable
Team quality: Our team has built and scaled products at Meta, Amazon, Instacart, Twitter, Microsoft, and Squarespace, and studied at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Yale.

Why this Role is Different

You're the industry expert on the founding team — directly shaping the products we build. Most recruiting tools were built by people who never ran a desk; here, your judgment defines what ships, from intake to screening to candidate engagement.
You're building a book on top of a platform, not from scratch: venture backing and a brand behind your name, demand channels we're investing in — marketing, VC ecosystem relationships, referral loops — so your network is one engine of growth, not the only one.
Clients you originate earn you revenue share for the life of the account. Outsized product impact, durable upside, none of the feast-or-famine.

What You’ll Get

Guaranteed base salary + uncapped performance pay. The stability of a salary without giving up the economics of running your own desk. No more zero-income quarters.
Revenue share on every client you bring. You earn a cut of account revenue on top of placement fees.
Exclusivity on every search. No marketplace races, no competing recruiters on your roles.
Founding-level equity. Real ownership in the firm you're helping build.
Tools and tech, on us. We pay for top recruiting tools and build custom products for you — proven to lift response rates and fill rates — so your time goes to clients, candidates, and closing.

What You'll Do

Win clients. Convert your existing book and open new accounts — fast-growing, VC-backed startups hiring for hard-to-fill technical roles.
Own those accounts end to end: relationships, expansion, renewals.
Run full-cycle searches with our tools multiplying your output — your job is judgment, negotiation, and closing.
Shape the product. As a founding recruiter, your feedback directly drives what we build.

Requirements

You currently make your living winning clients and filling their roles — on contingency, retained, or embedded — at an agency, on your own desk, or as the founder of your own shop. This is a business development role as much as a recruiting role: you bring in clients, own those accounts, and earn a share of the revenue they generate.

Agency, freelance, or founder background — 5+ years of full-cycle technical recruiting at an agency, on your own desk, or running your own firm.
Relationships with partners at top VCs and experience sourcing clients through portfolio referrals
Startup + technical depth — you've placed founding engineers, AI/ML and deep tech talent, or early GTM hires at Series A–C startups and know what great looks like at that stage.
Proven BD ability — founders and hiring managers respond when you reach out, and $500K+ in annual billings you personally generated. You're as comfortable selling a search as running one.

Nice to Have

Retained or executive-search experience and strong client relationships from this work
A network of strong independent recruiters who would want to work with you again
Bay Area based — not required, but a plus

NOTE: This is not a role at SilkChart, and it is not an in-house talent acquisition position. SilkTalent is a new, separate company (currently in stealth) built by the SilkChart founders and backed by $5M+ in venture funding. This role is for recruiters who have run their own book of business — at an agency, as a freelancer, or as founders of their own firm.