Talent Acquisition Lead - UK

Salience Labs Ltd; Abingdon; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Salience Labs Ltd is seeking a Talent Acquisition Lead in the UK to run end-to-end recruitment in an early-stage environment. You will headhunt the best candidates for each role, reporting directly to the Head of Talent and collaborating with hiring managers across the UK and Europe.

You will manage full-cycle recruiting from intake to offer, build outbound pipelines, and align with regional teams. The pace is high and ownership is real in this hands-on role at Salience Labs.

Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of recruitment experience with sourcing and closing hires.
• Agency experience with fast-paced outbound delivery.
• Early-stage technical startup experience and headhunting.
• Experience across technical, commercial and operational hiring.
• Speed-focused with clear time-to-hire understanding.
• Attention to detail in candidate comms, scheduling and offers.
• Strong outbound sourcing with proactive candidate reach.
• Comfort with demanding stakeholders and tight deadlines.
• Curiosity and rapid learning in unfamiliar tech areas.
• Willingness to work across UK and US time zones.

Responsibilities

• Run full-cycle recruiting from intake and sourcing to closing and offer, with limited dedicated support
• Manage hiring across multiple functions at once, prioritising as needed
• Build outbound pipeline for hard-to-find talent using research, networks and market mapping as well as LinkedIn
• Work with hiring managers to define role requirements
• Sell Salience to candidates with better-known options
• Give hiring managers regular pipeline updates and fast turnaround on feedback and decisions
• Align with the US talent team on a shared approach across regions
• Track time to hire, outbound response and conversion, and act on the results
• Contribute to tools and processes as the team grows

Skills

End-to-end recruitment

Agency experience

Startup experience

Sourcing & closing

Time-to-hire management

Attention to detail

Outbound sourcing

Stakeholder management

Curiosity/fast learning

UK/US time zone flexibility

Tools

LinkedIn Recruiter

AI recruiting tools

Applicant Tracking System

Job description

About us

Salience Labs is building an industry-defining approach to optical circuit switching for AI infrastructure, engineered for real latency reduction and cost savings at hyperscale. We’re moving from proven technology to real world deployment at scale, and joining at this stage means genuine ownership over that next chapter, working alongside a small, highly technical team on one of the most consequential problems in AI infrastructure today.

The Role

This is a hands-on, delivery-focused recruiter role. As Talent Acquisition Lead in the UK, you will run recruiting end to end in an early-stage environment. The work is broad and the pace is high. You will go directly into the market to headhunt the best possible candidates for each role opened.

You will report to the Head of Talent and work closely with hiring managers to fill roles based in the UK and Europe.

Responsibilities

• Run full-cycle recruiting, from intake and sourcing to closing and offer, with limited dedicated support

• Manage hiring across multiple functions at once, prioritising as needed

• Build outbound pipeline for hard-to-find talent using research, networks and market mapping as well as LinkedIn

• Work with hiring managers to define role requirements

• Sell Salience to candidates with better-known options

• Give hiring managers regular pipeline updates and fast turnaround on feedback and decisions

• Align with the US talent team on a shared approach across regions

• Track time to hire, outbound response and conversion, and act on the results

• Contribute to tools and processes as the team grows

What We’re Looking For

• 3 to 5 years of recruitment experience, personally sourcing and closing hires

• Agency experience, with a record of working at pace and delivering on outbound

• Early-stage technical start-up experience, moving fast on hard-to-fill roles through headhunting

• Range across technical, commercial and operational hiring, with the ability to get up to speed quickly

• Bias to speed, with a clear view of your own time to hire

• Strong attention to detail across candidate communication, scheduling and offers

• Strong outbound sourcing, with examples of reaching candidates who were not looking

• Comfort working with demanding stakeholders and tight deadlines

• Curiosity and quick learning in unfamiliar technical areas

• Flexibility across UK and US time zones

• Comfort using AI tools to work faster

• A team-first attitude, with no job too small

• Deep-tech, semiconductor, hardware or photonics experience is a plus