Lead Talent Partner - Product and Engineering in London

Orbital is the AI platform for real estate legal work. Real estate shapes the world around us: our homes, our workplaces and our cultural landmarks. It’s the infrastructure that powers everyday life and is the world's largest asset class. Yet behind every single deal, real estate and legal teams work hard to navigate decades-old complexity; manually connecting documents, hidden obligations, geo-spatial context, and multiple parties into a path forward. We connect the legal and physical record, so that path is clearer than ever before. Our mission is to make real estate transactions faster, clearer, and less manual.

Orbital is entering a major scaling chapter, and Product Engineering + Design Engineering are at the heart of it. We’re looking for an exceptional Lead Talent Partner to own how we find, attract, engage, assess and close the very best Product Engineers and Design Engineers in a fiercely competitive market. This is a low-volume, high-calibre role. Success looks like building a market-leading attraction engine and a repeatable hiring system that consistently delivers bar-raising hires, primarily in the UK (with occasional US roles).

The role, in a nutshell: You’ll be the CTO’s partner for Product & Design Engineering hiring — owning the strategy, the operating rhythm, and the market-facing plan that enables Orbital to repeatedly win top talent.

At Orbital, these roles are typically:

• Product Engineers: product-minded full‑stack engineers who ship end-to-end customer value.
• Design Engineers: frontend/UI engineers operating at the intersection of design and engineering, with high craft.

You’ll work closely with the CTO, senior Product/Engineering/Design leaders, and a marketing specialist to build the narrative, content and materials that help Orbital stand out — and convert the best people over time.

What you’ll do:

1. Own the Product & Design Engineering hiring strategy (CTO partnership)
   • Build and own a forward hiring plan with the CTO/COO: forecasting, sequencing, and prioritisation.
   • Own the hiring plan and reporting in the ATS (e.g. Ashby): req pipeline, stage design, interviewer pools, and metrics.
   • Act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders on: market intelligence and compensation benchmarks, org design and team build sequencing, interview plan quality and signal, funnel health and quality indicators.
2. Build a market-leading attraction engine (content + community + creative search)
   • Design and run a high-touch, always-on engagement and nurture engine for top Product & Design Engineering talent (not tied only to live reqs).
   • Partner with leadership and marketing to create standout content and outreach materials (positioning, sequences, technical narratives, proof points, community activity).
   • Establish targets (set with the CTO) and report on pipeline health and learning loops: warm pipeline size by discipline/level, engagement rates (reply / meeting booked), nurture → active candidate → offer → accept conversion, competitive intel and drop-off reasons.
3. Deliver hiring outcomes (low volume, very high calibre)
   • Personally own the most senior and business-critical Product Engineering hires (e.g., Staff/Principal/Lead level and key leadership roles).
   • Protect the quality bar for assessment, references, and offer calibration; step in on escalations and closing.
   • Set the operating rhythm: pipeline reviews, prioritisation, stakeholder alignment, and continuous improvement.

What we’re looking for (must-haves):

• Scale-up experience: proven track record hiring in a high-growth tech scaleup with high standards and ambiguity.
• Deep Product & Design Engineering market immersion: credible, active network in the UK. Ideally you have run meetups and build communities. You know who the standout people are and what motivates them.
• Exec-search level craft: evidence of closing low-volume, very high-calibre engineers via creative, non-standard routes (not just inbound + job boards or LinkedIn).
• Attraction + nurture strategy: you’ve built always-on engagement motions that convert exceptional people over time (content, community, referrals, targeted events, high-touch outreach).
• CTO partnership: you’ve partnered closely with technical leadership to define quality, design assessment, and calibrate the bar.
• Strong written narrative and messaging: you can translate a technical story into compelling outreach/materials (and collaborate well with marketing).
• Data-informed judgement: you use metrics as feedback loops for quality and funnel health — and can clearly explain what you track and why.

What this role is not (important):

• Not high-volume recruiting — this is low volume, bar-raising hiring.
• Not a “maintain the process” job — you’ll build and continuously improve the attraction engine and operating model.
• Not fully remote — hiring is UK-first and roles are hybrid.

Location: London, UK 2-3 days a week. Working model: Hybrid (all roles).

At Orbital, we’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. We especially welcome applications from people who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. Even if you don’t meet every single requirement, or if the right role isn’t listed yet, we’d still love to hear from you.