Technical Recruiter - Japan

cognition; United States; On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognition is hiring a Technical Recruiter to join our APAC Talent team in Japan. You will own end-to-end recruiting for technical roles, map talent, and partner with leadership to shape hiring strategy in a fast-growing AI company.

You will build pipelines across enterprise software, AI, cloud and developer tools, close top candidates, and maintain a superior candidate experience while raising the bar for hiring in Japan and beyond.

Qualifications

• Proven experience recruiting technical talent for high-growth tech companies.
• Strong understanding of enterprise software, AI, cloud, or dev tools markets.
• Ability to identify and engage passive candidates.
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English.
• High ownership and attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end recruiting for technical roles in Japan.
• Build deep talent maps across enterprise software, AI, developer tools, cloud, and infrastructure.
• Partner with hiring managers to define role requirements and interview processes.
• Source, engage and close exceptional passive candidates.
• Represent Cognition's story with clarity and energy in market.
• Drive high-bar hiring while maintaining an excellent candidate experience.
• Use data to inform leadership on pipeline quality, compensation signals, and risks.
• Collaborate with international talent leadership to scale recruiting in Japan.
• Act as a talent advisor, not an order taker.

Skills

Technical Recruiting

APAC Markets

Sourcing

Stakeholder Mgmt

English Communication

Talent Mapping

Job description

We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents.

We're the makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer.

Our team is extremely talent-dense. Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla, Lunchclub, Modal, Google DeepMind, and Nuro.

Building Devin is just the first step—our hardest challenges still lie ahead. If you're excited to solve some of the world's biggest problems and build AI that can reason on real-world tasks.

About The Role

We are hiring a Technical Recruiter to join our APAC Talent team, based in Japan.

You will partner closely with leadership in Japan to build high-quality pipelines for a wide range of roles.

You will be expected to operate with urgency, precision and high judgment. You will not simply manage process. You will help shape markets, map talent, influence hiring strategy and close bar-raising candidates in highly competitive environments.

The ideal person has a builder/operator mindset, understands what great commercial talent looks like in high-growth technology companies, and knows how to create momentum in ambiguous, fast-moving markets.

What You'll Do

• Own end-to-end recruiting for technical roles in Japan.

• Build deep talent maps across enterprise software, AI, developer tools, cloud, infrastructure and high-growth technology companies.

• Partner with hiring managers to define role requirements, calibration, interview process and candidate profile.

• Source, engage and close exceptional passive candidates.

• Represent Cognition's story with clarity, credibility and energy in market.

• Drive candidates through a high-bar hiring process while maintaining an excellent candidate experience.

• Use data and market insight to help leadership understand pipeline quality, conversion, compensation signals and hiring risks.

• Work closely with international talent leadership to improve process, raise the bar and build scalable recruiting muscle in Japan.

• Act as a talent advisor, not an order taker.
  

What We're Looking For

• Proven experience recruiting technical talent for high-growth technology companies.

• Strong understanding of enterprise software, SaaS, AI, infrastructure, developer tools or cloud markets.

• Ability to identify and engage high-calibre passive candidates.

• Strong stakeholder management skills with the confidence to push back, calibrate and advise senior hiring leaders.

• Excellent written and verbal communication in English

• High agency, high ownership and strong attention to detail.

• A track record of hiring bar-raising commercial talent in competitive markets.

• Comfort operating in a fast-changing, 0 to 1 environment.

• Strong sourcing discipline and the ability to build pipeline without relying on inbound or agencies.

• A builder mindset: you improve the system while delivering the work.

What Makes You Stand Out

• You have helped build early teams in new international markets.

• You have recruited for frontier AI, developer tools, infrastructure, cloud or enterprise software companies.

• You understand both technical hiring and technical-adjacent GTM roles.

• You have experience partnering with regional GMs, VPs or and/or founding country leaders.

• You are comfortable moving between strategic talent mapping and hands‑on execution.

• You care deeply about quality, not just speed.

• You know how to close candidates who have multiple options.

• You have experience hiring across multiple APAC markets

Our Commitment

Equal Opportunity. Cognition is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout the hiring process - please let us know if you need any. Cognition also considers applicants with criminal histories consistent with the SF Fair Chance Ordinance and similar local laws.

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