Head of Talent

What you'll own

• Build the in-house talent engine: stand up sourcing, pipeline, and full-cycle recruiting as an internal capability. Wean off contingent agencies and per-hire fees, build a sourcing motion that compounds, and hire/lead a small team (recruiters, sourcers, including offshore support) as volume demands.
• Steward the culture: as we scale, act as a primary guardian of company values (put customers first, think big, practice craftsmanship, deliver results). Protect the bar and culture as headcount grows.
• Make engineering hiring the priority: focus first on landing exceptional engineers who own entire systems across AI/ML and operations research, then scale rigor to GTM, operations, compliance, and G&A.
• Own the full funnel and raise the bar: implement structured interviewing, calibrated scorecards, fast and decisive processes while maintaining a relentlessly high bar. Expect both speed and craftsmanship.
• Build the employer brand and candidate experience: make Pylon's story compelling, ensure every candidate interaction reflects craftsmanship (including rejections). Own careers page and market presence.
• Own onboarding, ramp, and retention: standardize onboarding for day-one productivity; build rituals, growth paths, and feedback loops to retain top talent.
• Run the systems and the numbers: manage ATS, hiring metrics, time-to-fill, pipeline health, headcount planning, comp and leveling frameworks, and HR/onboarding ops stack (e.g. Rippling). Bring data-driven insights to leadership, board, and investors.

What we're looking for

• Built or substantially scaled an in-house talent function at a high-growth startup (ideally seed to Series C), with focus on technical, hard-to-fill engineering roles in competitive markets.
• High agency and player-coach: can personally source and close brilliant engineers while designing processes for scale. Build systems from scratch.
• Think from first principles, contrarian-and-correct: strong opinions on hiring, push back on leadership when needed.
• Can sell a hard mission: make ambitious people want to take a risk on Pylon's story.
• Data-driven on pipeline, conversion, comp, and headcount; comfortable owning numbers in board/investor contexts.
• Care about culture and retention as much as filling reqs; measure success by great people who stay and do their best work.
• Thrive in-person, in ambiguity, at high intensity in a hard, fast, high-stakes environment.

Bonus

• Experience in fintech, infrastructure, or regulated industries.
• Track record of cutting agency/contingent spend by building internal sourcing.
• Experience standing up and managing offshore/distributed sourcing teams.
• Helped a company scale through rapid growth and capital raises.

Your first 90 days (roughly)

• 30 days: Learn the bar by sitting in on interviews, auditing pipeline and spend, mapping roles to growth plan, identifying leaks.
• 45 days: Stand up in-house sourcing, replace expensive contingent dependencies, ship structured interview process and scorecards for engineering, tighten onboarding.
• 60 days: Deliver measurable compounding pipeline for engineering and key functions, clear hiring plan/budget, and first hires of your own team.

What you get

• Substantial ownership with meaningful equity.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision for you and dependents.
• Access to industry-leading home financing rates.
• 401(k) and financial planning support.
• Chance to build the team behind America's mortgage rails.

Compensation: competitive base + meaningful equity.