About the Role
A fast-growing, seed-stage AI company in Munich is hiring a Founding People & Talent Lead to build the Talent and People function from scratch. This is a high-impact, hands-on founding role working directly alongside the founding team to solve the single most critical scaling challenge for a high-growth AI business operating in a large, underserved market.
The company automates inside sales processes — quoting, order handling, and customer inquiries — for distributors and manufacturers using enterprise-grade AI. With strong early traction across the DACH region and backing from top-tier investors, the team is now ready to scale headcount rapidly and needs a sharp, high-agency operator to own that journey end-to-end.
Early emphasis will be heavily on Talent Acquisition, with increasing scope into broader People operations as the company grows.
What You'll Do
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Build and own the full hiring engine — leading recruiting end-to-end from role definition through to offer and close.
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Source and close exceptional candidates across functions, spending the majority of your time on talent early on.
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Design and scale recruiting processes, analytics, workflows, and operating rhythms that enable fast, high-quality hiring.
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Partner with founders and team leads to define role expectations, calibrate hiring decisions, and challenge org design.
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Shape People systems over time, including onboarding, performance calibration, career progression frameworks, and compensation benchmarking.
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Develop and execute an employer brand strategy to attract top talent across the DACH region and beyond.
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Build and nurture a talent network across universities, startups, and technical communities.
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Leverage AI tools and experiment continuously with new recruiting workflows to increase hiring velocity and quality.
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Champion a high hiring bar and implement scalable measures to maintain standards as the company grows.
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Contribute actively to company culture and hire with a long-term retention and development lens.
What We're Looking For
Must-have:
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2–5 years of experience with meaningful time in Talent Acquisition, People, or org development at a high-growth startup or scaleup.
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Demonstrated experience leading end-to-end recruiting across all functions (role definition, sourcing, assessment, closing) — ideally in a hypergrowth context (e.g. 10→50 or 30→100 employees).
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Structured thinker who can design systems and execute them independently (design, implement, iterate).
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Strong storytelling and relationship-building skills with a track record of sourcing and closing senior candidates.
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Daily user of AI tools with a genuine curiosity to experiment with new workflows.
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Ability to build employer branding and a talent network to attract top candidates in the DACH region and beyond.
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Full professional fluency in English.
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Comfortable with on-site work in Munich and a high-agency, ambiguous environment.
Nice-to-have:
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German language skills (a meaningful plus for DACH hiring and employer branding).
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Experience with performance calibration and compensation benchmarking as part of scaling People operations.
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Background or strong interest in B2B SaaS or AI/enterprise software environments.
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Openness to growing into a broader People leadership role as the company scales.
Location & Work Arrangement
This role is based on-site in Munich, Germany. The team works together in person and this role is expected to be present in the office. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation details were not specified for this role. You will work as a core founding team member at a well-funded, early-stage company with significant scope for ownership, career growth, and impact.
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