Talent Researcher

Sierra Ventures; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Top-tier compensation

Stock options

Health & wellness

Meals provided

Parental leave

Unlimited vacation (US)

Visa sponsorship

Team off-sites

Job summary

Reflection is seeking a Talent Researcher to own a deep network and market expertise, focusing on building a new sovereign commercial domain practice and a secondary focus across AI research, engineering, marketing, legal, security, or people functions.

You will own the top‑of‑funnel strategy for the hardest‑to‑fill AI roles, map the global talent landscape, and partner with recruiters to convert leads into hires.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of sourcing or talent research experience against highly specialized, low-availability talent pools such as complex GTM for sovereign sales or AI/ML research and engineering.
• Genuine depth in at least one domain of relevance to Reflection and demonstrated depth in a net new domain.
• Experience with sophisticated sourcing strategies to target and engage highly passive talent beyond standard job boards.
• Strong communication and relationship-building skills with highly specialized talent.
• Detail-oriented, metrics-driven, and comfortable in a high-velocity startup environment.
• Experience building with the latest AI technologies—tooling, agents, skills, etc.—and evidence of adoption by others on a team.

Responsibilities

• Own and continually curate a talent map for your domain of focus.
• Produce market briefs, target lists, and competitive intelligence to educate recruiters and hiring managers.
• Maintain complete data integrity on market engagement, learnings, and search activity for sophisticated analyses.
• Drive engagement strategies for sovereign commercial leaders, AI researchers/Engineers, and other niche roles.
• Continually develop a network and nurture long-term relationships with top talent for a given role or archetype.
• Activate prior candidates and relationships when business needs demand.

Skills

Talent research

Domain expertise

Sourcing strategies

Communication

Metrics-driven

AI tooling/agents

Tools

AI tooling

Job description

Our Mission

Reflection is a research lab making intelligence open and accessible for everyone to use, customize, and build on. We build open models that let anyone control their intelligence and help shape the future of AI. Our mission: make intelligence open and accessible to all.

The Team

The Talent Research team is the intelligence engine behind Reflection’s recruiting function. We continuously map the talent landscape, develop a network of relationships with the best talent in the world for every function we hire for, build the tools that give the whole recruiting team leverage, and partner with hiring managers and recruiters end-to-end on our toughest searches.

The Role

Each Talent Researcher is responsible for owning a deep network and differentiated market expertise in a relevant domain. This particular role will carry a primary focus on building a net new practice for our highly complex sovereign commercial domain and a secondary focus in other key areas, including but not limited to, technical (AI/ML research or engineering), marketing, legal, security, or people and talent. In this role, you’ll own the top‑of‑funnel strategy for the hardest‑to‑fill positions in the AI space - mapping the global talent landscape, building highly targeted pipelines, and partnering closely with recruiters and hiring managers to convert leads into hires. In addition, you will systematize your approaches and learnings into tools and agents for broader team leverage to continually uplevel the function and build upon our compounding knowledge base.

What You’ll Do

Talent Intelligence & Network Building

• Own and continually curate a talent map for your domain of focus

• Product market briefs, target lists, and competitive intelligence that educate recruiters and hiring managers and shape hiring and organizational decisions

• Maintain complete data integrity on all market engagement, learnings, and search activity in order to drive sophisticated analyses

• Drive engagement strategies for sovereign commercial leaders, AI Research Scientists/Engineers, and/or other niche roles - including proactive referral drives, event curation, and conference attendance.

• Continually develop a network and nurture long-term relationships with the best talent in the world for a given role or archetype, regardless of near term role need.

• Activate prior candidates and relationships when business needs demands.

Search Aligned Support

• Partner with recruiters and hiring managers to refine search criteria, deliver high‑quality leads, and educate them on the talent market for our most complex and highest stakes roles.

• Qualify candidates through initial conversations to ensure alignment on skills, experience, and research focus, creating a world class candidate experience and representing Reflection in the market excellently.

• Track sourcing metrics, conversion rates, and pipeline health to continuously improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Tool Building

• Build and ship tooling and agent workflows that provide real leverage to the entire recruiting team, especially for higher volume, lower complexity roles.

• Participate in driving tool adoption and measuring impact across the team, regularly iterating and re-evaluating tool impact.

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years of sourcing or talent research experience against highly specialized, low-availability talent pools, such as complex GTM for sovereign sales or AI/ML research and engineering

• Genuine depth in at at least one domain of relevance to Reflection, and demonstrated evidence building depth in a net new domain

• Demonstrated experience with sophisticated sourcing strategies to target and engage highly passive talent (beyond standard job boards)

• Strong communication and relationship‑building skills with highly specialized talent

• Detail‑oriented, metrics‑driven, and comfortable working in a high‑velocity startup environment

• Experience building with the latest AI technologies - tooling, agents, skills, etc. - and evidence that something you built was adopted by others on a team

What We Offer:

We believe that to make intelligence open and accessible to all, you need to start at the foundation. Joining Reflection means building from the ground up as part of a talent-dense team. You will help define our future as a company, and help define the future of open foundational models.

We want you to do the most impactful work of your career with the confidence that you and the people you care about most are supported.

• Top-tier compensation: Salary and equity structured to recognize and retain our talent globally.

• Stock options: Everyone who joins and contributes to Reflection's success gets to share in the upside through stock options.

• Health & wellness: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life, with an annual wellness allowance.

• Meals: Lunch and dinner are provided in the office daily.

• Life & family: 22 weeks paid parental leave for all new birthing and non-birthing parents, including adoptive and surrogate journeys.

• Vacation days: Unlimited paid time off in the U.S. and 30 days in the U.K.

• Sponsorship support: We sponsor visas to help exceptional talent join our team and support long‑term immigration pathways where applicable.

• Team building: We have regular off-sites, happy hours, and team celebrations.

Export Control Notice: This position may require access to technology or source code subject to the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Any offer of employment for this role may be conditioned on the Company's ability to provide the candidate with access to such technology or source code in compliance with applicable U.S. export control laws, which may require the Company to seek government authorization.