Founding People & Talent Lead

Job details

Work model

Not provided by source

Salary

Not listed by source

Location

Munich

Job description

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 the ground up. Operating in a large, underserved market, this company automates inside sales workflows - quoting, order processing, and customer inquiry handling - for distributors and manufacturers using AI. This is a high-impact, hands-on founding role working directly with leadership. You'll own end-to-end recruiting while progressively shaping how the company onboards, develops, and retains exceptional people as it scales across the DACH region and beyond. What You'll Do • Build and own the full hiring engine - leading recruiting end-to-end from role definition through to offer and close. • Spend the majority of your early time on Talent: sourcing and closing exceptional candidates across all functions. • Design and scale recruiting processes, analytics, workflows, and operating rhythms that enable fast, high-quality hiring. • Partner with founders and team leads to define role expectations, calibrate hiring decisions, and challenge org design. • Shape People systems over time - including onboarding, performance calibration, career progression, and compensation benchmarking. • Develop and own employer branding to attract top talent across the DACH region and beyond. • Build and nurture a pipeline network across universities, startups, and technical communities. • Leverage AI tools and experiment with new workflows to increase recruiting velocity and quality. • Champion a high hiring bar and implement standards-preserving measures as the team grows. • Contribute to company culture with a long-term retention and development mindset. What We're Looking For Required: • 2–5 years of experience with meaningful time in Talent, People, or org development at a high-growth startup or scaleup. • Demonstrated experience leading end-to-end recruitment (role definition, sourcing, assessment, closing) in a hypergrowth context (e.g., 10→50 or 30→100 headcount). • Structured thinker who can independently design, implement, and iterate on systems and processes. • Daily user of AI tools with a genuine curiosity to experiment with new recruiting workflows. • Strong storytelling and relationship-building skills with a proven track record closing senior candidates. • Ability to build employer branding and a talent network to attract top candidates in the DACH region. • Full fluency in English. Nice to Have: • Experience with performance calibration and compensation benchmarking as part of scaling People operations. • German language skills. • Background in enterprise software, AI, or B2B SaaS environments. We actively encourage candidates who may grow into a broader People leadership role over time to apply. Location This role is on-site in Munich, Germany. Candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to Munich. Visa sponsorship is not available. Compensation & Details • Employment type: Full-time • Stage: Seed (backed by a top-tier accelerator and institutional investors) • Team size: Early-stage (under 20 people) - you'll be a key early hire Find Jobs in Germany on Arbeitnow