Senior Technical Recruiter Strategy & Ops

Front Door Defense; Los Angeles, Northern (CA, KY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, Vision

PTO

Stock Options

Job summary

Machina Labs is seeking a Senior Technical Recruiter in Los Angeles to build scalable pipelines for AI/ML and software roles. This senior IC will own full-cycle recruiting and partner with engineering leaders to translate needs into search strategies.

You'll map markets, develop proactive pipelines, and manage a disciplined process across funnel stages, while contributing to scaling the recruiting function as the company grows.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience.
• At least 4 years of in-house recruiting experience.
• Demonstrated success recruiting senior software engineers and specialized talent (AI/ML, data, infrastructure, robotics).
• Strong technical fluency and ability to understand nuanced engineering profiles.
• Excellent sourcing and market-mapping skills with proven passives onboarding.
• Experience running disciplined recruiting processes, including calibration, structured interviewing, debriefs, pipeline management, and ATS hygiene.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting for software engineering, AI/ML, data, infrastructure, and other highly technical roles, from senior IC through leadership levels.
• Partner with engineering leaders to translate business and technical needs into clear, realistic candidate profiles and search strategies.
• Lead profile calibration, including defining must-haves, tradeoffs, target talent pools, and what success looks like before a search launches.
• Build thoughtful market maps and proactive pipelines for hard-to-find technical talent.
• Use market data and candidate feedback to recalibrate when the market does not support the initial profile.
• Drive a consistent, high-quality recruiting process, including recruiter screens, interview plans, scorecards, debriefs, pipeline management, and candidate communication.
• Maintain strong operating discipline and data quality within our ATS, using funnel data and market insight to identify where searches are working or getting stuck.
• Contribute to improving how we recruit as we scale, including processes, tools, reporting, talent pipelines, and hiring-manager practices.

Skills

Full-cycle recruiting

In-house recruiting

Sourcing & market-mapping

Stakeholder management

ATS hygiene

ATS

Tools

ATS

Job description

Senior Technical Recruiter

Build scalable technical recruiting pipelines for AI/ML and software roles

Location: Los Angeles, California

Compensation: $120,000 - 150,000 USD / year

About The Role

Machina Labs Talent Team Recruiting Manager

Engineering moves at software speed. Manufacturing doesn't. Yet.

Machina Labs is changing that. We build intelligent, software-defined factories that produce complex metal structures directly from digital design. By integrating advanced metal forming, robotics, and automated production inside a flexible factory architecture, we enable customers to move from prototype to production in weeks, not years.

Backed by Lockheed Martin, Toyota, and NVIDIA, we're building the manufacturing infrastructure that defense, aerospace, and advanced mobility programs will run on.

If you want to work on hard problems that matter and see them fly, drive, and defend, this is the place.

About the Role

This is a senior individual contributor role on a small, highly collaborative Talent team. Technical hiring will be your primary focus, but we operate as one team and flex across priorities as the needs of the business change. We're looking for someone who has recruited deeply technical talent in-house, knows how to run a great search from calibration through close, and can be a strong partner to engineering leaders as we continue building our recruiting infrastructure.

You'll need to be equally comfortable mapping a difficult talent market, challenging an overbuilt profile, managing a disciplined search process, and closing a candidate with multiple options.

What You'll Do

• Own full-cycle recruiting for software engineering, AI/ML, data, infrastructure, and other highly technical roles, from senior IC through leadership levels.
• Partner closely with engineering leaders to translate business and technical needs into clear, realistic candidate profiles and search strategies.
• Lead profile calibration, including defining must-haves, tradeoffs, target talent pools, and what success looks like before a search launches.
• Build thoughtful market maps and proactive pipelines for hard-to-find technical talent rather than relying solely on inbound applicants.
• Use market data and candidate feedback to help hiring managers recalibrate when the market does not support the initial profile.
• Drive a consistent, high-quality recruiting process, including recruiter screens, interview plans, scorecards, debriefs, pipeline management, and candidate communication.
• Maintain strong operating discipline and data quality within our ATS, using funnel data and market insight to identify where searches are working or getting stuck.
• Contribute to improving how we recruit as we scale, including processes, tools, reporting, talent pipelines, and hiring-manager practices.

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, with significant depth recruiting software and other highly technical talent.
• At least 4 years of in-house recruiting experience, ideally within a high-growth startup or similarly fast-moving technical environment.
• Demonstrated success recruiting senior software engineers and specialized talent across areas such as AI/ML, data, infrastructure, platform, or robotics.
• Strong technical fluency and the ability to understand nuanced engineering profiles and adjacent talent markets.
• Excellent sourcing and market-mapping skills, with a track record of engaging and closing passive candidates.
• Strong hiring-manager partnership skills. You can bring structure to an ambiguous search, push back constructively, and use market evidence to drive better decisions.
• Experience running disciplined recruiting processes, including profile calibration, structured interviewing, debriefs, pipeline management, and ATS hygiene.
• Data-minded and able to use funnel performance, sourcing effectiveness, and market feedback to inform recruiting strategy.

Nice to Haves

• Experience recruiting within robotics, autonomy, aerospace, defense technology, advanced manufacturing, or another hardware/software environment.
• Experience recruiting AI/ML or research-oriented engineering talent.
• Experience building recruiting processes or programs in an earlier-stage company.
• Familiarity with talent communities and technical sourcing channels beyond LinkedIn.

What Success Looks Like

• Our most difficult technical searches have clear profiles, thoughtful market strategies, and strong pipelines.
• Engineering leaders view Talent as a partner who improves both the quality and speed of hiring.
• Candidates experience a thoughtful, responsive, high-quality process.
• Search and funnel data are clean enough to understand what is working and where we need to adjust.
• The recruiting team becomes more scalable and consistent as the company grows.

$120,000 - $150,000 a year In addition to the provided base salary range, this role also offers comprehensive benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision), PTO, and Stock Options.

Machina Labs is an Affimative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity employer and considers all applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or status as a protected veteran in accordance with state and federal law.