Founding Recruiting Lead

Mach9 Robotics Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Mach9 Robotics Inc. is seeking a Founding Recruiting Lead to build the talent function from scratch in San Francisco. You will own full-cycle recruiting across engineering, product, go-to-market, and operations, shaping hiring processes with the founders.

You’ll design recruiting infrastructure, implement an ATS and interview rubrics, and focus on candidate experience, data-driven decisions, and employer branding to attract top talent for a fast-growing robotics software startup.

Qualifications

• 5–7 years of full-cycle recruiting experience.
• Technical recruiting background is a strong plus, startup experience valued.
• Builds relationships quickly across all levels and communicates effectively.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting across technical and non-technical roles.
• Own the candidate experience end-to-end.
• Build the recruiting infrastructure from scratch (ATS, rubrics, calibration).
• Partner with hiring managers to calibrate what we're looking for and craft interview loops.
• Track data that matters (time-to-fill, offer acceptance).
• Own our recruiting brand and external messaging.

Skills

Full-cycle recruiting

Technical recruiting

Startup experience

Relationship building

Communication skills

Tools

Ashby ATS

LinkedIn Recruiter

Job description

Mach9 builds software for Spatial Intelligence, transforming how civil engineering teams model, design, build, and maintain the physical world.

Our first product, Mach9 Digital Surveyor, uses AI to automate manual surveying workflows by extracting infrastructure features like signs, curbs, lane markings, and utility poles from large-scale geospatial data. With major customers across transportation, utilities, engineering, and infrastructure, Mach9 is growing quickly and building the team that will define the future of software for the physical world.

As Mach9’s Founding Recruiting Lead, you will build the talent function from scratch and help define how Mach9 attracts, evaluates, and closes exceptional talent. This is a highly cross‑functional, full‑cycle recruiting role spanning sourcing, candidate engagement, interview process management, and closing across engineering, product, go‑to‑market, and operations.

You will work closely with the CEO, CTO, and broader leadership team to define recruiting strategy, build scalable recruiting infrastructure, shape hiring processes, and help make critical decisions about how Mach9 identifies, evaluates, and closes exceptional talent.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting across technical and non-technical roles: Sourcing, coordinating, and closing.

• Own the candidate experience end-to-end: Every touchpoint, every piece of feedback, every offer call; we want every person who goes through our process to walk away excited about what we're building, whether or not they join

• Build the recruiting infrastructure from scratch : ATS, interview rubrics, comp calibration, hiring manager alignment, then keep improving it as we grow

• Partner closely with hiring managers : Deep calibration on what we're looking for, building interview loops that actually test for the right things, etc.

• Track the data that matters: Passthrough rates, time-to-fill, offer acceptance rates. Use it to make better decisions, not just report numbers

• Own our recruiting brand: Job descriptions, how we show up externally, and the story we tell about what we’re building and why it matters

• Own recruiting strategy alongside the founders: Which roles to prioritize, how to think about team composition, and how hiring decisions today shape the company six months from now

Requirements

• 5–7 years of full-cycle recruiting experience; technical recruiting background is a strong plus, as is at least one stint at a startup

• Comfortable with modern recruiting tools (ATS platforms like Ashby, sourcing tools, LinkedIn Recruiter)

• Builds relationships quickly across all levels (candidates, hiring managers, founders) and adjusts communication style accordingly

• Creative sourcer who finds candidates others overlook, and tenacious enough to follow through

• Highly organized with strong attention to detail; can run multiple open roles across different functions simultaneously without things falling through the cracks

• Clear, direct communicator in writing and in conversation- equally comfortable selling a candidate on the role and pushing back on a hiring manager