Founding People & Talent Lead

<h3>About the Role</h3><p style="min-height:1.5em">A fast-growing, seed-stage AI company in Munich is hiring a <strong>Founding People &amp; Talent Lead</strong> to build the Talent and People function from the ground up. This is a high-impact, hands-on founding role working directly with company leadership to solve one of the most critical scaling challenges in a high-growth AI enterprise software business targeting a large, underserved market in the DACH region and beyond.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em">You'll own end-to-end recruiting while progressively shaping how the company onboards, develops, and retains exceptional people. If you thrive in high-agency environments, enjoy building systems from scratch, and want to grow into a broader People leadership role, this is for you.</p><h3>What You'll Do</h3><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Build and own the full hiring engine — leading recruiting end-to-end from role definition through sourcing, assessment, and closing offers.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Spend the majority of your early time on Talent, sourcing and closing exceptional candidates across all functions.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Design and scale recruiting processes, analytics, workflows, and operating rhythms that enable fast, high-quality hiring.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Partner with founders and team leads to define role expectations, calibrate hiring decisions, and challenge org design.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Build out People systems over time — including onboarding, performance calibration, career progression frameworks, and compensation benchmarking.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Develop and own employer branding to attract top talent across the DACH region and internationally.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Build and nurture a talent network across universities, startups, and technical communities.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Leverage AI tools and experiment with new workflows to increase recruiting velocity and quality.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Uphold a high bar for hiring excellence and maintain standards as the team scales.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Contribute actively to company culture, hiring for long-term retention and growth.</p></li></ul><h3>What We're Looking For</h3><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Required:</strong></p><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">2–5 years of experience with meaningful time in Talent, People, or org development at a high-growth startup or scaleup.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Demonstrated experience leading end-to-end recruitment across all functions (role definition, sourcing, assessment, closing) in a high-growth environment — ideally through a hypergrowth phase (e.g., 10→50 or 30→100 people).</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Proven ability to build scalable recruiting systems, processes, workflows, and analytics independently.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Strong storytelling and relationship-building skills with a track record of sourcing and closing senior candidates.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Daily use of AI tools and a genuine curiosity to experiment with new recruiting workflows.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Ability to build employer branding and a talent network to attract top candidates in the DACH region and beyond.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Fluency in English.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Comfort with ambiguity, high agency, and on-site work in Munich.</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Nice to Have:</strong></p><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">German language skills (a meaningful plus for this market).</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Experience with performance calibration and compensation benchmarking as part of scaling People operations.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Background in enterprise software, AI, or B2B SaaS environments.</p></li></ul><h3>Location</h3><p style="min-height:1.5em">This role is based <strong>on-site in Munich, Germany</strong>. Candidates must be willing to work from the Munich office full-time. <strong>Visa sponsorship is not available</strong> — candidates must already have the right to work in Germany.</p><h3>Compensation &amp; Benefits</h3><p style="min-height:1.5em">Compensation details were not specified for this role. You will be joining as a founding team member at a well-funded seed-stage company (Series A/B pipeline), with the opportunity to grow into a senior People leadership position as the company scales.</p><p>Find more <a href="https://www.arbeitnow.com/english-speaking-jobs">English Speaking Jobs in Germany</a> on Arbeitnow</a>