Staff Recruiter

Ouster Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 187,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Ouster Inc. in San Francisco, CA, is seeking an experienced Recruiter to lead the hiring engine for engineering and technical roles. This key foundational hire will own full lifecycle recruiting, build scalable sourcing and interview practices, and partner with leaders to attract high-impact talent.

You will coach managers, nurture talent pipelines, and help design processes for first-of-its-kind hires, with equity opportunities and comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in Recruiting, with focus on engineering/technical roles.
• Full lifecycle recruiting experience.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity.
• Judgment to coach new and experienced hiring managers.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale sourcing, hiring, and interview practices for experienced and new hiring teams.
• Strategically nurture talent pools to build proactive pipelines of talent before the business recognizes the need.
• Champion and demonstrate how a culture of recruiting impacts the business and champion equitable hiring practices.

Skills

Engineering recruiting

Full lifecycle recruiting

Ambiguity management

Coaching hiring managers

Job description

Who we are: Sensors Designed for Progress

At Ouster, we believe that only what is real truly matters. We are building the sensory foundation for Physical AI and global automation, creating high-performance digital lidar sensors and software solutions that allow machines to see, understand, and interact with the physical world in real time.

From enabling autonomous vehicles and smart infrastructure to safeguarding industrial facilities and robotics, our unified platform of hardware and AI perception models turns complex spatial data into real-world safety and efficiency. We iterate tirelessly to build tools that solve real-world challenges, driven by a simple truth: the future will be shaped by creators, not by talkers.

If you thrive on solving hard engineering problems, shipping tangible hardware and software, and making safety accessible to all, this is where you will do your best work.

The Role & Your Impact

In this role, you will be the key foundational hire enabling the recruiting engine at Ouster to kickstart.

Recruiters at Ouster are full-lifecycle, who enjoy sourcing hard-to-find talent, and successfully negotiating offers with hard-to-close talent. You know that hiring is one of the most important multipliers enabling success. You should be a storyteller, able to convey our mission and vision in a way that resonates with your audience. You should have a natural curiosity, able to learn and adapt to new technologies and concepts with a keen sense of timing to ask candidates the right questions at the right time.

You will have the opportunity to build and scale processes, document your wins, build new tooling and manage a team of recruiters. The measure of your success will be driven by how you coach technical and non-technical teams, people managers and company leaders to ensure each hire is a force multiplier. The ideal candidate acts as a partner to their teams, and takes great pride in hiring talent that drives impact. We are a team that encourages asking why, proposing solutions, and delivering results. Small, but mighty.

Core Responsibilities

• Build and scale sourcing, hiring, and interview practices for experienced and new hiring teams.
• Strategically nurture talent pools to build proactive pipelines of talent before the business recognizes the need.
• Champion and demonstrate how a culture of recruiting impacts the business.
• Champion and advocate for equitable hiring practices throughout every step of the hiring processes.

What You Bring

• 8 years of experience in Recruiting, with a focus on engineering and related technical roles.
• Full lifecycle recruiting experience.
• Comfort and ability to thrive in ambiguity.
• Judgment and confidence to coach new and experienced hiring managers.

What Makes You Stand Out

• Demonstrated experience advising leaders and designing processes for “first of their type” hires.
• Demonstrated experience building teams as an in-house recruiter, ideally in a startup setting.
• Demonstrated experience understanding and conveying funnel metrics.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage AI as a force multiplier beyond generating job descriptions and interview rubrics.

Life at Ouster

We work hard and design with purpose, offering an environment where individual autonomy drives global scale. Ouster provides competitive base compensation, equity packages, and comprehensive benefits designed to support employee well-being.
The base pay will be dependent on your skills, work experience, location, and qualifications. This role may also be eligible for equity & benefits. ($187,000 - $230,000)

Ouster is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer that pursues and hires a diverse workforce. Ouster does not make employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic or national origin, nationality, sex, gender, gender-identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, military status, or any other basis protected by local, state, or federal laws. Ouster also strives for a healthy and safe workplace, and prohibits harassment of any kind. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Ouster considers qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.