Founding Recruiter

Strella; New York (NY); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Strella is seeking a first dedicated recruiter in New York to own full-cycle hiring across GTM and Engineering. You will define roles, craft scorecards, and lead interviews from intake to offer, shaping Strella’s recruiting engine.

You’ll source proactively, build a pipeline, and partner with founders and GTM leaders on headcount planning and compensation. This is a high-impact, early-stage role at a fast-growing AI-native market research company.

Qualifications

• 4–8 years of recruiting experience, with at least 2 years in-house at a venture-backed B2B SaaS or AI company.
• Track record of closing GTM hires such as AEs, SDRs/BDRs, CSMs, solutions engineers and marketers, ideally 15+ a year.
• Experience as an early or founding recruiter at a Seed to Series C startup, or helping a team scale through hypergrowth.
• Fluency with modern sourcing tools such as LinkedIn Recruiter, Clay, Gem or similar, and an ATS such as Ashby.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle hiring from intake to signed offer across Go-to-Market and Engineering.
• Work with hiring managers to define each role, its scorecard and interview plan before sourcing.
• Close candidates by selling Strella's story, traction and equity opportunity.

Skills

Builder

Hunter

Commercial mindset

People-centric

Hungry and humble

Tools

LinkedIn Recruiter

Clay

Gem

Ashby

Job description

About Strella

Strella is reimagining market research with AI. Our platform conducts in-depth, AI-moderated interviews and transforms customer conversations into actionable insights in a fraction of the time of traditional research.

We’re building a new model for market research that combines the speed and scale of AI with the strategic expertise of world-class researchers. Our mission is to make high-quality customer understanding faster, more accessible, and more impactful for every business.

We're growing our go-to-market team fast. We're hiring a Customer Success Lead, a Business Development Representative and a Product Marketing Manager now, and more roles will follow. We're looking for our first Internal Recruiter to own hiring end to end. You'll build the recruiting engine and help shape the team that takes Strella to market.

Company Highlights

• Explosive Growth: We’ve more than quadrupled our annual recurring revenue over the past year, demonstrating strong demand for a fundamentally better way to conduct research.

• Enterprise Traction: Trusted by leading brands including J.Crew, Chobani, DraftKings, and to uncover customer insights and inform critical business decisions.

• Strong Investor Backing: Raised capital from Bessemer Venture Partners to accelerate our mission of transforming the market research industry.

• Massive Market Opportunity: We’re bringing AI-native technology to a $100B+ global insights industry, replacing slow, expensive research processes with a faster, more scalable approach.

• Building the Future of Research: We’re expanding beyond software into a new model of full-service insights, combining AI-powered research with expert-led strategy. You’ll be among the earliest hires helping shape this offering.

What You’ll Do

Own Full-Cycle Hiring

• Run searches from intake to signed offer across Go-to-Market (e.g., Customer Success, Sales, Marketing) and Engineering

• Work with hiring managers to define each role, its scorecard and its interview plan before the first candidate is sourced.

• Close candidates by selling a company they may not know yet, using our story, our traction and the equity opportunity.

Build the Pipeline

• Source most of your pipeline through outbound: LinkedIn Recruiter, Clay and sequencing tools, referrals and your own network.

• Keep a warm bench of talent so we can move fast when the next role opens.

• Evaluate candidates on substance, including quota attainment, deal size, sales motion and retention outcomes.

Build the Recruiting Playbook

• Build our hiring process from scratch: structured interviews, scorecards, take-home exercises, debriefs and offer approvals.

• Own the ATS (Ashby) and reporting on time-to-fill, pass-through rates and source quality.

• Make every candidate's experience fast, organized and personal, so our process becomes a selling point.

Partner With Leadership

• Work directly with our founders and GTM leaders on headcount planning, leveling and compensation.

• Advise hiring managers on market conditions, candidate expectations and how to win competitive offers.

• Help define how Strella recruits as we grow, including employer brand, referral programs and eventually technical hiring.

Who You Are

High Impact Attributes

• Builder: You've built recruiting processes where none existed and you like the blank page.

• Hunter: You source proactively and don't wait for inbound.

• Commercially minded: You understand how GTM teams work and can tell a strong AE from someone who rode a hot market.

• People-centric: Candidates and hiring managers trust you, and you care about getting the hire right, not just filling the seat.

• Hungry and humble: You move fast, own outcomes and roll up your sleeves.

Experience

• 4–8 years of recruiting experience, with at least 2 years in-house at a venture-backed B2B SaaS or AI company.

• A track record of closing GTM hires such as AEs, SDRs/BDRs, CSMs, solutions engineers and marketers, ideally 15+ a year.

• Experience as an early or founding recruiter at a Seed to Series C startup, or helping a team scale through hypergrowth.

• Fluency with modern sourcing tools such as LinkedIn Recruiter, Clay, Gem or similar, and an ATS such as Ashby.

Nice to Have

• Experience recruiting for research, insights or AI-native companies.

• GTM leadership hiring (Head of Sales, VP Customer Success).

• An existing network of GTM talent in New York.

Why Join Strella

• Build the function: You'll be our first dedicated recruiter, with a clear path to Head of Talent as the team grows.

• Direct impact: Work side by side with the founders and GTM leaders, and see your hires shape the company.

• Competitive package: Competitive compensation, meaningful equity and comprehensive benefits.