Head of Talent

Story Inc; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Film/Video hiring

AI/ML hiring

Freelance crews

Deep-tech exposure

Creative work focus

Engineer trust

Job summary

Story Inc in San Francisco is seeking a Head of Talent to build the teams behind Story and Wizard, owning hiring, compensation and onboarding across creative and engineering roles. You’ll report to the CEO and unify talent strategy for both companies as Story grows into a full‑service creative agency and Wizard scales into its beta.

Responsibilities include building a single hiring plan with leadership, sourcing senior software engineers for Wizard, designing interview loops, training managers,

Qualifications

• 7+ years in recruiting or talent leadership, including startup experience.
• Full-cycle hiring across creative and technical roles, including senior hires.
• Proven track record hiring senior software engineers in a competitive market.
• Hands-on experience designing compensation bands and equity programs, not just applying them.
• Working knowledge of California employment law and contracts.
• Experience building onboarding programs from scratch.
• Ability to manage hiring for multiple teams or entities concurrently, with follow‑through.

Responsibilities

• Build and run one hiring plan with leadership across Story and Wizard engineering.
• Source and close creative and agency talent through portfolios, referrals, festivals, schools and your network.
• Source and close senior software engineers for Wizard across C++/Qt, media pipelines, AI/ML, real-time networking, web and QA.
• Design structured interview loops for creatives (portfolios and paid tests) and engineers (technical screens, coding, system design).
• Train hiring managers and engineering interviewers to assess well and decide quickly and fairly.
• Own offers, employment agreements and contractor terms with outside counsel for both companies.
• Design compensation philosophy, levels and pay bands for both creative and engineering roles, benchmarked to each market.
• Partner with Finance on headcount budget, Wizard’s equity program and pay transparency requirements.
• Build onboarding programs that get new hires productive in their first 30 days, from shoot-ready to shipping code.
• Manage ATS, HR tools and recruiting metrics, reporting on time-to-hire and offer acceptance for each company.
• Shape how Story and Wizard present themselves to candidates, from posts to careers pages.

Skills

Hiring leadership

Full-cycle hiring

Senior engineers hiring

Compensation design

California law

Onboarding programs

Multi-team hiring

Job description

Great stories start with extraordinary people.

We’re bringing together exceptional creative talent to tell the stories of people shaping the future. Work alongside people who raise your standards, champion your ideas, and give you room to do the best work of your career.

Story inspires science. Science makes story real.

We're hiring a Head of Talent to build the teams behind both Story and Wizard, our sister company building the next generation of professional editing software. You'll own how we find, hire, pay and welcome every new teammate. That spans filmmakers, designers and strategists at Story, and C++, AI/ML, media pipeline and infrastructure engineers at Wizard. Reporting to the CEO, you'll build one talent function that serves both companies as Story grows into a full-service creative agency and Wizard heads into its beta.

Responsibilities:

• Build and run one hiring plan with leadership across Story (Blade, Client Services) and Wizard engineering.
• Source and close creative and agency talent through portfolios, referrals, festivals, schools and your own network.
• Source and close senior software engineers for Wizard across systems and C++/Qt, media pipelines, AI/ML, real-time networking, web and QA.
• Design structured interview loops for every role: portfolio reviews and paid test projects for creatives; technical screens, coding and system design interviews for engineers.
• Train hiring managers and engineering interviewers to assess well and make fast, fair decisions.
• Own offers, employment agreements and freelancer or contractor agreements for both companies, including IP and work-for-hire terms, with outside counsel.
• Design compensation philosophy, levels and pay bands for both creative and engineering roles, benchmarked to each market.
• Partner with Finance on headcount budget, Wizard's equity program and pay transparency requirements.
• Build onboarding for both companies that gets new hires productive in their first 30 days, from shoot-ready to shipping code.
• Manage our ATS, HR tools and recruiting metrics, and report on time-to-hire and offer acceptance for each company.
• Shape how Story and Wizard show up to candidates, from job posts to careers pages.

Requirements:

• 7+ years in recruiting or talent, including time leading talent at a startup.
• Full-cycle hiring experience across both creative and technical roles, including senior hires.
• A track record of hiring senior software engineers in a competitive market.
• Hands-on experience designing compensation bands and equity programs, not only applying them.
• Working knowledge of offer negotiation, employment contracts and California employment law.
• Experience building onboarding programs from scratch.
• Comfort running hiring for more than one team or entity at once, with consistent follow-through.
• Ability to work full-time, on-site in San Francisco.

Bonus:

• Experience hiring for film, video production, design or a creative agency.
• Experience hiring engineers for desktop, creative, video, graphics or AI software.
• Familiarity with managing freelance crews and production contractors.
• Experience with deep‑tech, science or founder‑led companies.
• An eye for creative work and enough technical fluency to earn engineers’ trust.
• Confidence pushing back when a hire isn’t the right fit.