Senior Recruiting Manager

Form Energy; Berkeley (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Form Energy is hiring a Recruiting Manager to lead our West Coast talent acquisition team from the Berkeley office, overseeing recruiters and coordinators who hire complex hardware talent for battery, mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing engineering roles.

The role partners with engineering executives, HR leaders, and the People team across Somerville, MA and Weirton, WV to keep our talent strategy unified and effective. This hybrid position requires onsite work 2–3 days weekly.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of people management experience.
• Proven hardware recruiting experience.
• Startup experience preferred.
• Experience working across matrixed teams in multiple locations/time zones.

Responsibilities

• Directly manage, coach, and grow a team of 5+ recruiters and talent coordinators.
• Design sourcing and hiring strategies for complex hardware roles across battery, mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing engineering.
• Serve as trusted advisor to West Coast engineering and leadership teams.
• Collaborate with People Ops partners in Somerville, MA and Weirton, WV to unify talent strategy.
• Partner with People Operations on total rewards and headcount planning.
• Own metrics for time-to-hire, quality of hire, pipeline health, and source of hire.

Skills

Leadership

People management

Hardware recruiting

Startup experience

Cross-functional collaboration

Distributed teams

Talent branding

Berkeley onsite

Job description

Are you ready to build America’s energy future? Form Energy is an American manufacturing and energy technology company. We’re revolutionizing energy storage with cost-effective, multi-day technology designed to keep the electric grid secure and reliable, even during extended periods of stress. By strengthening the electric system and reimagining what’s possible, we’re giving clean energy a whole new form!

In recent years, Form Energy has earned a number of accolades, including being named by TIME as a “Best Invention”, MIT Technology Review as a “Top Climate Tech Company To Watch”, and Fast Company as “One of the Next Big Things In Tech”. We are making rapid progress on our mission of delivering energy storage for a better world, and our team is growing just as rapidly to meet demand. We have signed contracts with leading electric utilities across the United States and production of our iron-air batteries is underway at our first high-volume manufacturing facility in West Virginia.

Working for Form Energy is more than just a job, it’s a chance to be part of something extraordinary. And now - right as we significantly scale up battery manufacturing - might be the most exciting moment in the company’s history to join. We are assembling a team of highly talented and driven individuals across the country. Driven by our core values of humanity, excellence, and creativity, our team is determined to deliver on our mission and transform the energy landscape for the better.

Feeling energized to make a meaningful impact on the world? Then keep reading - you’ve come to the right place.

Role Description

Form Energy is building multi-day energy storage to help decarbonize the grid, and we\'re scaling the team that builds it quickly. We\'re hiring a Recruiting Manager to lead our West Coast talent acquisition team out of our Berkeley office, where a growing concentration of our engineering and hardware development work lives.

This is a role for someone who loves complexity. You\'ll manage a team of recruiters and coordinators, partner directly with engineering executives and hardware leaders, and collaborate closely with our People team across Somerville, MA and Weirton, WV to keep our talent strategy unified. You\'ll set the strategy for how we attract technical hardware talent, and you\'ll coach the team executing it every day.

This is a hybrid role, which will require working onsite from our office in Berkeley 2 or 3 days a week.

Relocation assistance is available.

What you\'ll do:

• Team leadership. Directly manage, coach, and grow a team of 5+ recruiters and talent coordinators. Build a culture of excellence, humanity, and creativity, and set the standard for how we recruit, hire, and treat candidates at every stage.

• Hardware talent strategy. Design sourcing and hiring strategies built for complex, niche hardware roles across battery, mechanical, electrical, controls, and manufacturing engineering. You\'ll create the motion that makes hard-to-fill roles fillable.

• Executive partnership. Serve as a trusted advisor to West Coast engineering and leadership teams. Understand their technical requirements at a real level, forecast talent gaps proactively, and translate business plans into concrete hiring plans.

• Cross-site collaboration. Build strong bridges with our talent and HR partners in Somerville and Weirton. Share best practices, standardize where it makes sense, and maintain a unified national talent brand across all three locations.

• People Ops partnership. Act as a strategic partner to the People Operations team on total rewards, headcount planning etc. You\'re a peer to the People team, not a customer of it.

• Data-driven optimization. Own the metrics for your team, including time-to-hire, quality of hire, pipeline health, and source of hire. Use them to continuously sharpen the process and present clear insights to leadership.

• Employer brand. Sharpen how we tell the Form Energy story to top hardware talent. Turn our mission into a reason candidates say yes.

What you\'ll bring:

• Proven leadership. 3+ years of direct people management experience, including a meaningful stretch managing a team of 5+ recruiters or coordinators. This is real, sustained people leadership, not senior IC work with occasional mentorship.

• Hardware recruiting expertise. A proven track record recruiting within a hardware development company. Batteries, automotive, aerospace, robotics, semiconductors, medical devices, or other complex physical products all count. Manufacturing exposure is helpful but not required. What matters is that you deeply understand hardware engineering talent and how to attract it.

• Startup agility. Prior startup experience is strongly preferred. You\'re comfortable navigating ambiguity, moving quickly, and building processes from the ground up as we scale. You know the difference between a process that helps and a process that slows people down, and you build accordingly.

• Cross-functional and distributed team fluency. You\'ve partnered closely with People Operations and HRBP peers, and you\'ve worked effectively across matrixed teams in multiple locations and time zones.

• Location. Ability to work from or commute regularly to our Berkeley, CA facility.
  

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To build America’s energy future, we need everyone at the table. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply to our open jobs.

If you may require reasonable accommodations to participate in our interview process, please contact [e-mail]. Requests for accommodations will be treated with discretion.

Form Energy is committed to maintaining the privacy of our applicants. Please be aware that we will never solicit sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers or bank account details during the recruiting or hiring process.