About the role
About Liquid AI
Spun out of MIT CSAIL, we build general-purpose AI systems that run efficiently across deployment targets, from data center accelerators to on-device hardware, ensuring low latency, minimal memory usage, privacy, and reliability. We partner with enterprises across consumer electronics, automotive, life sciences, and financial services. We are scaling rapidly and need exceptional people to help us get there.
The Opportunity
Recruiting at Liquid is a growth lever, not a support function. You will own a swim lane of technical searches from intake through close across product, applied ML, inference, infrastructure, and research, working directly with hiring managers, technical leaders, and founders.
This is an owner-operator role on a small Talent team. You will build your own pipeline, run your searches, manage candidates and hiring managers, and help build the recruiting function as you operate it.
What We're Looking For
We need someone who:
- Loves the craft: You have opinions about great recruiting and go deep on the company, role, and talent market rather than simply running a process.
- Owns the outcome: You find the real constraint, decide what to do next, and keep a search moving without waiting to be chased.
- Finds people others miss: You source creatively, build relationships before people are actively looking, and don't depend on inbound or a sourcer to create pipeline.
- Builds trust on both sides: You understand what candidates and hiring managers care about, communicate directly, and push back when the evidence calls for it.
The Work
- Own technical searches end-to-end, from role intake and market mapping through sourcing, assessment, onsite, offer, and close.
- Build your own pipeline through direct sourcing, referrals, research, conferences, and other non-obvious channels, with thoughtful, individualized outreach.
- Partner with hiring managers to define what exceptional looks like, turn ambiguous hiring needs into clear searches, and keep those searches moving.
- Manage candidates with the close in mind from the first conversation, understand what drives their decisions, and build the case for Liquid throughout the process.
- Run a disciplined operation in Ashby, surface stalled searches before anyone asks, and use market and pipeline evidence to improve the search.
Experience & Capabilities
What you'll need
- Full-cycle recruiting experience, including personally sourcing candidates and owning searches through close.
- Depth in the roles and markets you recruit for, with a point of view on how great recruiting should work.
- Evidence that you can find and engage hard-to-reach candidates without relying on inbound or brand alone.
- Strong candidate judgment and experience navigating competitive closes.
- Learn unfamiliar technical domains quickly and become credible with the people you recruit.
- Based in San Francisco and able to work from our office four days per week.
Helpful, not required
- AI / ML, deep-tech, infrastructure, or similarly technical recruiting experience.
- Early-stage experience where you helped build the recruiting motion rather than inherited a mature one.
- Experience with hiring-manager coaching, interview design, recruiting analytics, or complex offers.
What Success Looks Like (Year One)
- You independently own a full swim lane from intake through close and consistently create your own pipeline.
- You win competitive candidates by understanding what matters to them and making a compelling case for Liquid.
- Hiring managers trust you as a partner in defining roles, evaluating talent, and making hiring decisions.
- You improve how the team sources, assesses, closes, or learns from hires.
What We Offer
- Build the hiring system: This isn't a seat inside a mature recruiting machine. You'll own searches end-to-end, work directly with technical leadership and founders, and help shape how Liquid identifies, assesses, and closes exceptional people as we scale.
- Compensation & Equity: Competitive base salary plus equity, so you share in what we build. Final offers reflect skills, experience, and location.
- Time Off: Unlimited PTO, plus company-wide Refill Days, long weekends when the whole company rests together.
- Health & Wellbeing: Comprehensive health coverage, with details varying by location.
- Paid Leave: Paid leave for pregnancy, parenting, medical needs, and caring for family.