Director of Talent in London

AI is growing faster than any technology in history and the explosion in demand has created a massive infrastructure gap; we can no longer build chips or power stations fast enough to keep up. The industry is still leaning on a ten‑year‑old hardware blueprint that has reached its limit. A new paradigm that is faster and more efficient will be the biggest economic opportunity of the next century and create the most important company of the next decade. The OLIX Decode Accelerator 1 (DX-1) is the first accelerator architected specifically for decode. Rack‑scale co‑design of logic, data movement, packaging, optics and interconnect enables a step change in system level performance.

The Director of Talent owns how OLIX finds, wins and hires the people who will build it. You will take a talent function built for around 200 people and make it one that carries us confidently to 1,000, across London, Bristol, Austin, San Francisco and Toronto, without lowering the bar on a single hire. This is a hands-on leadership role. You will personally lead our most senior and executive searches, and close people who are not looking. Many of the people we need exist in pools of a few dozen worldwide: III‑V device engineers, advanced packaging architects, optical interconnect specialists, AI software engineers, silicon leaders who have taken a chip to production. Hiring them is a precision problem, not a volume one. You will build a team of recruiters as sharp as the engineers they hire, and set an AI strategy for recruiting that changes how we decide, not just how fast we work. The best argument wins here, and we expect you to make it, welcome challenges to it, and change your mind when the evidence says so.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale the talent function from around 200 to 1,000 people: org design, hiring, priorities and operating rhythm, in place before the headcount arrives.
• Lead senior and executive searches directly, including the hires that signal the calibre of people joining OLIX.
• Attract, hire and develop top Recruiters and Sourcers, and hold them to the same bar as our engineers.
• Own the hiring bar: what great looks like for each role family, and how consistently every interviewer applies it.
• Build the playbook for extremely scarce talent: mapping the market, building relationships early, and closing passive candidates.
• Set OLIX's AI strategy for recruiting, deciding where AI improves our judgement and where people need to stay in the loop.
• Own hiring systems, data and metrics, and partner with the exec team on workforce planning, including saying when a plan is not hireable as written.
• Build OLIX's talent brand so the best people in photonics, silicon and AI know who we are.

Skills & Experience

• Has built and led a talent function through hyper‑growth, from a few hundred people toward 1,000 or beyond, while keeping quality high. This is non‑negotiable.
• Has attracted and developed top recruiters, and can name the people who would come with you.
• Has worked where talent density is top 1% (a frontier AI lab, a leading semiconductor or hardware company, or an elite deep tech scale‑up) and knows what that bar looks and feels like.
• Has personally led senior and executive searches into niche, extremely limited talent pools.
• A clear point of view on AI in recruiting that goes beyond efficiency, with evidence of putting it into practice.
• Either versed in deep tech already, or curious enough to go deep on product and technology and hold your own with engineers.
• Influences through evidence and clear reasoning, not title, and is comfortable disagreeing directly in a founder‑led environment.

Nice to Have

• Talent leadership at an AI lab, AI hardware company or semiconductor business.
• Direct experience hiring in photonics, optoelectronics, advanced packaging, silicon or AI software.
• Experience hiring across the UK and US and running a multi‑site function.

Compensation & Equity

• Competitive Salary: Commensurate with your experience, skills, and location.
• Equity & Ownership: Meaningful stock options. You’re not just joining the mission; you’re owning a piece of it.
• Proximity Bonus: We value your time. To minimise your commute and maximise your life, we offer an annual Living‑Local Bonus if your residence is within 20 minutes of the office.
• Retirement Benefits: Employer‑contributed retirement plans to help you build long‑term financial security.

Due to U.S. export control regulations, candidates’ eligibility to work at OLIX depends on their most recent citizenship or permanent residency status. We are generally unable to consider applicants whose most recent citizenship or permanent residence is in certain restricted countries (currently including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Russia, Belarus, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Venezuela). Applicants who have subsequently obtained citizenship or permanent residency in another country not subject to these restrictions may still be eligible.