Senior Talent Operations Specialist (12 month FTC - Maternity cover) in London

Location: London

Employment Type: Full time

Location Type: Hybrid

Department: People & Talent

About the role:

This role is responsible for the operational backbone of Talent at Definely. You will combine hands-on recruitment delivery with ownership of the systems, processes, and data that underpin how we hire and onboard new joiners as the business scales. You will work closely with hiring managers to run efficient, well-designed hiring processes and ensure candidates have a thoughtful, consistent experience. Alongside this, you will own and improve Talent Operations across recruitment and onboarding, managing our ATS and related tools, maintaining clean and reliable data, and turning insight into practical improvements. This is a hands-on, autonomous role for someone who enjoys building and refining how things work, partnering closely with others, and bringing structure and clarity to a fast-moving scale-up environment. You will work in close partnership with People Ops, with clear ownership across Talent and People Operations and smooth handoffs where the two intersect.

What you’ll do:

• Own end-to-end recruitment delivery, ensuring a smooth, thoughtful, and well-run candidate experience.
• Partner with hiring managers on role scoping, interview design, and decision making, keeping hiring efficient, consistent, and fair.
• Act as a trusted operational partner to hiring managers, helping them navigate hiring processes with confidence.
• Own and continuously improve Talent Operations processes across recruitment and onboarding.
• Manage and optimise our ATS (Ashby), acting as the go-to person for hiring process guidance, system best practice, and tooling questions.
• Ensure consistent ATS usage across teams and regions, with strong data hygiene and reliable processes.
• Maintain accurate recruitment and onboarding data, reporting, dashboards, and insights to inform decision making and continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with the Senior People Ops Specialist to ensure smooth handoffs where Talent and People Operations intersect, including contract handover, system setup, and employee record creation.
• Collaborate with People, Finance, and Hiring teams to ensure clean data, aligned processes, and a seamless transition from hiring into the broader employee lifecycle.

What you’ll bring:

• Experience in a Talent or Talent Operations role, ideally within a start-up or scale-up environment.
• Strong in-house recruiting experience, with a clear understanding of what great looks like in hiring systems, processes, and stakeholder management.
• Confidence running end-to-end recruitment processes, without this being the sole focus of your role.
• Hands-on experience managing an ATS and improving recruitment and onboarding workflows.
• Highly organised, detail-oriented, and biased towards delivery.
• Comfortable working autonomously while knowing when to partner, escalate, or seek alignment.
• Clear, confident communicator who builds trust with stakeholders across teams.
• You move quickly, iterate often, and prioritise outcomes over unnecessary complexity.
• You thrive in ambiguity and enjoy building and improving processes as the business scales.

What we can offer you:

• Competitive salary.
• Quarterly team socials.
• Hybrid working with three days a week in the office for collaboration, with flexibility to support individual circumstances including working parents.
• 25 days holiday +.