Founding Recruiter

Cooper AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary & equity

Health insurance

Wellness stipend

401k match

Unlimited PTO

Lunch program

Job summary

Cooper AI in San Francisco is seeking a Founding Recruiter to own full-cycle recruiting across GTM, Product, Engineering, and G&A. You will partner with the founder and hiring managers to shape the early hires that will define the company’s trajectory.

You’ll build the recruiting playbooks, pipelines, and interview systems from the ground up, targeting passive candidates and new-hire excellence. The role suits a builder who thrives in ambiguity and loves scaling a startup."

Qualifications

• 5+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, ideally with a high-growth, early-stage company.
• You've recruited across multiple functions and get energy from learning a new market.
• You've created or substantially improved recruiting processes, tools, or programs, not just operated inside them.
• Strong sourcing instincts and the ability to find people who aren't looking.
• An AI-powered approach to build, test, and scale workflows that improve efficiency.

Responsibilities

• Run full-cycle recruiting across GTM, Product, Engineering, and G&A: intake, sourcing, screening, closing, and everything in between.
• Build pipelines from scratch and find candidates who aren’t actively looking.
• Partner with hiring managers to define what great looks like and move searches forward.
• Own the candidate experience end to end, communicating Cooper's story and growth potential.
• Design and improve interview processes, scorecards, references, and offers using data.

Skills

Full-cycle recruiting

GTM recruiting

Engineering recruiting

People ops

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

ATS

LinkedIn Recruiter

Job description

About Cooper

Cooper is an AI coworker for the insurance industry. Getting a business insured involves mountains of paperwork: filling out repetitive forms, re-typing the same information into one insurance company's website after another, and comparing offers by hand. Cooper does that busywork automatically, right inside the tools people already use, so brokers and their teams can focus on advising clients instead of pushing paper. We're a small team with deep insurance roots, teaching AI to do real, trusted work in a massive, overlooked industry.

Backed by Lightspeed, General Catalyst, and Valor, Cooper AI is building from the ground up to modernize a $1T+ global insurance industry.

About the role

We're looking for a Founding Recruiter who wants to build. You'll own full-cycle recruiting across every function at Cooper, spanning GTM, Product, Engineering, and G&A, and you'll partner directly with our founder and hiring managers on the hires that shape the company.

We have the tools and early frameworks in place. What we need is someone who can take that foundation and build the systems, playbooks, and hiring bar that will carry Cooper through the next several stages of growth. If a blank page excites you more than a finished one, this is your role.

What you'll do

• Run full-cycle recruiting across GTM, Product, Engineering, and G&A: intake, sourcing, screening, closing, and everything in between.
• Build pipelines from scratch. Most of our best hires won't come from inbound. You'll go find the people who aren't looking, including for roles you've never recruited for before.
• Partner with hiring managers to define what great looks like, calibrate on candidates, and keep every search moving.
• Own the candidate experience end to end, so that everyone who talks to Cooper leaves with a clear picture of who we are and why this is a place to grow a career.
• Build the machine. Design and improve our interview process, structured scorecards, reference and verification practices, offer approach, and reporting. Help us hire on data, not gut feel.
• Develop the team. Mentor our recruiting coordinator and future junior hires into strong sourcers and recruiters.
• Represent Cooper in the market. Be a visible ambassador for the company and help shape how we tell our story to candidates.

Who you are

• 5+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, ideally with a meaningful stretch at a high-growth, early-stage company.
• A true generalist. You've recruited across multiple functions and get energy from learning a new market rather than being thrown by it.
• A builder's mindset. You've created or substantially improved recruiting processes, tools, or programs, not just operated inside them.
• Strong sourcing instincts. You know how to find people who aren't looking and get them to take the call.
• An AI-powered approach. You like to build, test, and scale AI workflows that make you more efficient and free up your time for what matters most: relationships with candidates.
• Comfort with ambiguity, pace, and wearing more than one hat. Prior experience as the first or second recruiter at a company is a plus.
• Based in San Francisco, or ready to relocate, and excited to work onsite with the team.

Benefits

• Competitive salary & equity
• Medical, dental & vision insurance
• Monthly wellness stipend
• 401k with company match
• Unlimited PTO
• Company sponsored lunch 5x per week
• Off sites, happy hours, and team building events