Staff/Principal Recruiter, Leadership & Strategic Hiring

SentiLink Corp; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) match

Flexible PTO

In-person events

Home office stipend

Job summary

SentiLink is seeking a Staff or Principal Recruiter to lead high-impact leadership searches and strategic talent initiatives. You’ll partner with the Head of Talent and senior leaders to shape hiring strategies and bring structure to evolving needs.

This senior role requires deep recruiting expertise, executive collaboration, and a pragmatic, data-driven mindset. You’ll manage complex searches, build market maps, advise executives, and drive scalable recruiting practices across the organization.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience in tech or high-growth startups.
• Proven track record leading senior-level searches (Director level and above).
• Strong market mapping, research, sourcing and proactive relationship building.

Responsibilities

• Own complex leadership and strategic searches from scope to close.
• Develop talent-market maps to identify target companies and leadership profiles.
• Partner with executives to define talent needs and guide difficult hiring decisions.
• Build relationships with exceptional talent for current and future needs.
• Deliver a personalized candidate experience with discretion and professionalism.
• Set structure for evolving priorities and drive decisions with data.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Talent-market mapping

Executive recruiting

Sourcing

Job description

SentiLink helps institutions and protects customers by accurately resolving identities and flagging fraud risk. Each day, we verify more than 3 million identities, flagging 150k+ fraud attempts in the process. The problems we work on are challenging, and solving them takes deep domain expertise, rigorous analysis, and a willingness to dig into the details.

At SentiLink, you'll work alongside smart, highly collaborative colleagues who respect each other's time and judgment, take ownership, and follow through on their commitments. Together, we do truly meaningful work protecting the identities of innocent consumers and flagging the fraudsters attempting to exploit them.

We're well capitalized and growing quickly. We already serve 13 of the top 15 U.S. banks, we're expanding into new markets, and we're backed by Craft Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, NYCA, and Max Levchin. We've been named to the Forbes Fintech 50 and as a 2026 FICO Industry Vanguard Decision Award Winner. We were also the first company to go live with the electronic Consent Based Social Security Number Verification (eCBSV) service, and we've testified before the U.S. Congress on the future of identity.

We want SentiLink to be the best place you've ever worked. We offer generous benefits and support a range of working arrangements, from fully remote to in-office. We are a digital-first company with strong collaboration across the U.S. and India, and we meet in person regularly to build relationships. We have offices in Austin, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle (Bellevue), Los Angeles, and Chicago in the U.S., and in Gurugram (Delhi) and Bengaluru in India.

Role

We're looking for a Staff or Principal Recruiter to lead some of SentiLink's most important and complex searches, with a primary focus on leadership hiring and strategic talent opportunities. This is a senior individual contributor role for someone who combines deep recruiting expertise with strong business judgment, exceptional stakeholder management, and an operational mindset.

You’ll work closely with the Head of Talent and senior leaders to shape hiring strategies, identify exceptional talent, and bring structure to ambiguous or evolving business needs. You’ll be equally comfortable building a detailed market map, advising an executive on a difficult hiring decision, engaging a passive leadership candidate, or improving how the recruiting team operates.

Success in this role means becoming a trusted recruiting partner to SentiLink's leadership team, consistently delivering on high-stakes searches, building relationships with exceptional talent ahead of business needs, and contributing to a more strategic, effective, and scalable talent function.

This is a remote, U.S.-based position. Candidates based in Austin who are able to work regularly from one of our office locations are especially encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities

• Own complex leadership and strategic searches from initial scoping through close, taking accountability for search strategy, candidate quality, stakeholder alignment, and hiring outcomes.
• Develop comprehensive talent-market maps to identify target companies, leadership profiles, emerging talent, and competitive dynamics. Translate that research into actionable sourcing and hiring strategies.
• Partner directly with executives and senior hiring managers to define talent needs, challenge assumptions, calibrate candidate profiles, and guide difficult hiring decisions with sound judgment and market insight.
• Build and maintain relationships with exceptional talent, including passive candidates and individuals who may be relevant to future or opportunistic hiring needs.
• Deliver a highly personalized candidate experience, managing sensitive conversations, complex stakeholder dynamics, and nuanced closing processes with professionalism, discretion, and attention to detail.
• Navigate ambiguous and evolving priorities, bringing structure to loosely defined searches, identifying tradeoffs, and proactively driving decisions and next steps without requiring extensive direction.
• Serve as a strategic and operational partner to the Head of Talent, helping prioritize recruiting investments, identify gaps and opportunities, and drive initiatives that improve the effectiveness of the broader talent function.
• Build scalable recruiting practices by improving search planning, market intelligence, reporting, candidate engagement, and recruiting workflows. Use data and operational insights to identify problems and implement practical solutions.

Requirements

• 7+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, ideally within a technology company or high-growth startup.
• Demonstrated success independently leading complex, senior-level recruiting searches, including Director-level and above, with accountability from search strategy through close.
• Deep expertise in talent-market mapping, research, sourcing, and proactive relationship building, with the ability to identify and engage exceptional talent beyond active applicants.
• Proven ability to advise and influence executive stakeholders, navigate competing perspectives, and drive alignment on hiring strategy and talent decisions.
• Strong judgment and comfort with ambiguity, including the ability to independently structure undefined problems, prioritize competing opportunities, and turn incomplete information into clear action.
• Exceptional candidate relationship management, with a track record of delivering thoughtful, high-touch experiences and managing confidential or sensitive searches.
• Strong operational and analytical skills, with experience using recruiting data, structured processes, and practical improvements to increase recruiting effectiveness.
• Experience contributing to broader talent strategy, recruiting operations, or cross-functional initiatives beyond individual requisition ownership (preferred)

Compensation

$180,000-$220,000 + equity + benefits

Note: This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels, and the actual base salary within that range will be determined by several components including but not limited to the individual's experience, skills, and qualifications.

Perks

• Employer paid group health insurance for you and your dependents
• 401(k) plan with employer match (or equivalent for non US-based roles)
• Flexibile paid time off
• Regular company-wide in-person events
• Home office stipend, and more!

Corporate Values

• Follow Through
• Deep Understanding
• Whatever It Takes
• Do Something Smart