Technical Sourcer

Adverb; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Outset is seeking a strategic, curious Technical Sourcer to identify and engage exceptional technical talent. You’ll partner with recruiters, hiring managers, and technical leaders to develop targeted sourcing strategies for priority roles across backend, frontend, data, ML, and platform teams.

You will master Boolean and X-ray searches, map talent, and build candidate pipelines across geographies and communities, while communicating a compelling engineering story and opportunity.

Qualifications

• 3-6 years of technical sourcing experience.
• Experience sourcing for backend, frontend, full-stack, data, ML, cloud infra, DevOps/SRE, security, and leadership roles.
• Ability to evaluate technical profiles beyond titles or employer names.
• Proficient with sourcing channels: LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, Stack Overflow, developer communities.
• Expertise in Boolean and X-ray search, talent mapping, and pipeline building for difficult roles.

Responsibilities

• Partner with recruiters and hiring managers to understand role requirements, stacks, priorities, and ideal profiles.
• Build targeted talent maps and pipelines by function, skill set, geography, and domain.
• Identify and engage passive candidates through diverse channels and communities.
• Write personalized outreach communicating the company’s mission and opportunities.
• Conduct initial conversations to assess qualifications, motivation, location, and compensation fit.
• Present well-calibrated candidates with context to hiring teams and maintain pipeline data.

Skills

Technical sourcing

Boolean search

X-ray search

LinkedIn Recruiter

Talent mapping

Candidate outreach

Tools

Ashby

Greenhouse

Lever

Gem

SeekOut

Job description

Outset invented a better way to do research: AI-powered user interviews.

Global brands like Hubspot, Microsoft, Uber and Nestle use Outset to achieve deeper, qualitative insights about their users at unprecedented speed and scale.

The research industry is massive (>$140B and growing) and ripe for disruption. Incumbents are outdated, slow, and burdened by high-cost services. That's our opportunity.

Outset is backed by top Silicon Valley investors and raised a $30M Series B in December 2025—less than six months after our Series A—led by Radical Ventures with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s venture arm), 8VC, Y Combinator, and Adverb Ventures.

The raise follows a breakout year, with our business growing 8x as enterprise customers across industries adopt our category, AI‑moderated research, as the new standard for understanding people.

We’re a tight-knit team serving some of the world’s largest enterprises.

We’re looking for a strategic, curious, and highly resourceful Technical Sourcer to help us identify and engage exceptional technical talent. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving complex talent problems, understands how to assess technical profiles beyond job titles, and thrives in the pace and ambiguity of a high-growth startup. You’ll partner closely with recruiters, hiring managers, and technical leaders to develop targeted sourcing strategies for priority roles.

Responsibilities

• Partner with recruiters and hiring managers to deeply understand role requirements, technical stacks, business priorities, and ideal candidate profiles.

• Build targeted talent maps and pipelines by function, skill set, geography, company background, and domain expertise.

• Identify and engage passive candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, technical communities, open-source projects, industry events, referrals, alumni networks, and other creative sourcing channels.

• Use Boolean search, X-ray search, talent intelligence tools, and market research to uncover qualified candidates for difficult and niche technical searches.

• Write thoughtful, personalized outreach that communicates the company’s mission, engineering challenges, technical environment, and career opportunity.

• Conduct initial candidate conversations to assess core qualifications, technical relevance, motivation, location, compensation alignment, and interest.

• Present well-calibrated candidates to hiring teams, including clear sourcing context and relevant technical background.

• Maintain accurate, timely candidate activity and pipeline data within Ashby.

• Track sourcing funnel performance, outreach response rates, candidate quality, diversity representation, and pipeline health; use insights to improve strategy.

• Share market intelligence with recruiting and engineering leadership, including talent availability, competitor activity, skill‑set trends, location constraints, and candidate feedback.

• Develop and maintain long-term candidate relationships and talent communities for future hiring needs.

• Support inclusive sourcing practices by broadening search strategies, diversifying talent channels, and helping reduce bias in talent identification.

• Improve sourcing processes through documentation, automation, tooling, and repeatable research methods.

Qualifications

• 3 - 6 years of technical sourcing experience.

• Demonstrated experience sourcing for technical roles, such as backend, frontend, full-stack, platform, mobile, data, machine learning, cloud infrastructure, DevOps/SRE, security, or engineering leadership.

• Ability to evaluate technical profiles based on programming languages, frameworks, architecture, infrastructure, scale, product domain, and depth of ownership—not solely titles or employer names.

• Strong familiarity with technical sourcing channels, including LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, Stack Overflow or developer communities, open-source ecosystems, conference communities, and referral networks.

• Expertise in Boolean and X-ray search, candidate research, talent mapping, and building pipelines for difficult-to-fill roles.

• Strong written communication skills and the ability to craft authentic, customized outreach that resonates with technical audiences.

• Experience using applicant tracking systems, recruiting CRMs, and sourcing tools; familiarity with Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Gem, SeekOut, hireEZ, LinkedIn Recruiter, or similar platforms is a plus.

• Ability to manage multiple searches, changing priorities, and fast-moving stakeholder needs while maintaining an exceptional candidate experience.

• Strong partnership and consultative skills, including the ability to influence hiring teams using market data and sourcing insights.

• A data-informed, detail-oriented approach to measuring sourcing effectiveness and improving outcomes.

• Commitment to inclusive hiring practices and expanding access to technical opportunities.

• Familiarity with modern technical stacks and concepts, such as Python, Java, Go, TypeScript, React, Node.js, Kubernetes, AWS/GCP/Azure, distributed systems, data platforms, LLMs, MLOps, observability, or application security.