Technical Recruiter San Francisco

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

Job summary

AfterQuery is seeking a Technical Recruiter to join as one of the first recruiting hires and shape the future of our frontier AI data infrastructure team. You will own end-to-end recruiting for engineering and technical roles, partnering directly with the founders to define hiring systems, candidate experience, and talent bar from day one.

You will build outbound sourcing pipelines, source candidates from top AI labs, startups, and big tech, and help define interview loops and scorecards.

Qualifications

• 1+ years of experience in technical recruiting, ideally at a high-growth startup, AI company, top tech company, or technical recruiting agency.
• Proven ability to source, engage, and close strong engineering candidates in competitive markets.
• Strong understanding of technical roles across software engineering, infrastructure, full-stack, applied AI, and systems/product engineering.
• Experience building outbound sourcing pipelines from scratch.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong judgment on candidate quality, calibration, culture fit, and hiring urgency.
• High agency, strong ownership, and comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment.
• Experience partnering directly with founders, executives, or senior hiring managers.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting for technical roles, including software engineering, infrastructure, applied AI, full-stack, and product engineering.
• Build high-quality outbound sourcing pipelines for top technical talent.
• Source candidates from AI labs, high-growth startups, big tech, quant firms, and elite universities.
• Partner with founders and hiring managers to define role requirements, interview loops, scorecards, and hiring strategy.
• Run candidate processes end-to-end, including outreach, screens, coordination, feedback collection, offer support, and closing.
• Create a high-touch candidate experience that reflects AfterQuery’s bar, speed, and culture.
• Track and improve recruiting funnel metrics, including response rates, pass‑through rates, offer acceptance, and time to hire.
• Help build the foundation of AfterQuery’s recruiting function, including systems, templates, workflows, and talent market maps.

Skills

Technical recruiting

Sourcing outbound

Interviewing

Candidate closing

Stakeholder management

Communication

Startup experience

Tools

ATS systems

LinkedIn Recruiter

Job description

About AfterQuery

AfterQuery is an applied research lab curating data solutions for foundation model development.

We serve every frontier AI lab with the mission of delivering the best data to power the best models. In doing so, we can make expertise that once took a lifetime to build available to anyone who needs it. Our customers are the ones building the foundation models themselves and our work sits directly in the loop of how those systems improve.

This is a rare opportunity to join a company at a defining moment in AI. Since raising our $30M Series A at a $300M valuation, AfterQuery has grown well over a $100M revenue run rate.

We're based in San Francisco and backed by leading investors including Altos Ventures, BoxGroup, and Y Combinator and angels from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Microsoft AI.

Technical Recruiter

As one of our first recruiting hires, you’ll help build the technical team shaping the future of frontier AI data infrastructure. You’ll own recruiting for engineering and technical roles end-to-end, partner directly with the founders, and help define the hiring systems, candidate experience, and talent bar from day one.

Why Apply

• Massive Opportunity: We were one of the fastest growing YC companies in our batch, and we believe we can be one of the fastest growing YC companies of all time.

• Founding Role: You’ll be one of our first recruiting hires and help define how AfterQuery hires world‑class technical talent.

• High Ownership: You’ll own full‑cycle recruiting across engineering and technical roles.

• Direct Founder Access: You’ll work directly with the founding team on hiring strategy, candidate calibration, and closing.

• Strong Team: Founding team has experience from Citadel Securities, Meta, Google, Silver Lake, Morgan Stanley, and more.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting for technical roles, including software engineering, infrastructure, applied AI, full-stack, and product engineering.

• Build high-quality outbound sourcing pipelines for top technical talent.

• Source candidates from AI labs, high-growth startups, big tech, quant firms, and elite universities.

• Partner with founders and hiring managers to define role requirements, interview loops, scorecards, and hiring strategy.

• Run candidate processes end-to-end, including outreach, screens, coordination, feedback collection, offer support, and closing.

• Create a high-touch candidate experience that reflects AfterQuery’s bar, speed, and culture.

• Track and improve recruiting funnel metrics, including response rates, pass‑through rates, offer acceptance, and time to hire.

• Help build the foundation of AfterQuery’s recruiting function, including systems, templates, workflows, and talent market maps.

Required Qualifications

• 1+ years of experience in technical recruiting, ideally at a high-growth startup, AI company, top tech company, or technical recruiting agency.

• Proven ability to source, engage, and close strong engineering candidates in competitive markets.

• Strong understanding of technical roles across software engineering, infrastructure, full-stack, applied AI, and systems/product engineering.

• Experience building outbound sourcing pipelines from scratch.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Strong judgment on candidate quality, calibration, culture fit, and hiring urgency.

• High agency, strong ownership, and comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment.

• Experience partnering directly with founders, executives, or senior hiring managers.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience recruiting for AI, ML, data infrastructure, developer tools, quant, or frontier technology companies.

• Strong network across engineering, AI, startup, university, or quant communities.

• Experience hiring founding engineers, senior engineers, infrastructure engineers, or other hard-to-close technical talent.

• Comfortable with LinkedIn Recruiter, ATS systems, sourcing tools, email sequencing tools, and AI-assisted recruiting workflows.

• Experience improving interview processes, scorecards, calibration systems, or candidate experience.

• Startup experience preferred.

Compensation will depend on experience, seniority, and demonstrated ability to independently source, manage, and close high-quality technical candidates.