Lead Talent Partner - Engineering

We power people’s progress. At Preply, we’re all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalised learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact. We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started. As a category-defining company, we’re shaping what the future of learning looks like at global scale. Every Preply lesson sparks change, fuels ambition, and drives progress that matters. Joining Preply means helping define the future of education at global scale, and building something that truly matters for millions of people, every day.

About the team: Talent Acquisition at Preply is a high-performing, ambitious team deeply embedded in the business. We’re intentional about raising the bar: we iterate, use data, test new ideas, and learn together so we can hire the people who will help Preply keep powering progress. We’re technology-driven, data-informed, and focused on hiring against business priorities and outcomes. Just as importantly, we’re team-first: collaborative, supportive, low-ego, and committed to building something meaningful together. Building a legendary company should be fun.

About this role: As Preply continues to scale, Engineering remains at the core of our product, growth, and future. We’re expanding technical hiring across complex domains and global tech hubs - and we’re looking for a Lead Talent Acquisition Partner, Engineering to help us build a hiring engine that can match that ambition. This is a hands‑on player‑coach role. You’ll personally own complex engineering searches, while also guiding a small team of TA Partners through dotted‑line leadership. You’ll stay close to the craft, but your impact will go beyond individual roles: you’ll help turn workforce plans into clear hiring priorities, translate those priorities into smart hiring strategies, and build the processes that allow us to hire exceptional talent with speed, quality, and focus. You’ll partner closely with TA Leadership, Engineering Directors, VPs, and our CTO to understand what the business needs, where the biggest hiring bets are, and how we should sequence work across domains and hubs. You’ll own the full hiring rhythm: planning, sourcing strategy, pipeline health, calibration, weekly progress tracking, issue‑spotting, and continuous improvement. It’s a great fit for someone who loves being an excellent IC, but also wants to grow as a people leader. You’ll lead through expertise, influence, and example – raising the bar for how we hire, how we use data, how we partner with Engineering, and how we keep improving the machine as we scale.

What you’ll be doing:

• Own the Engineering hiring engine end to end: understand workforce plans, clarify hiring priorities, translate them into hiring strategies, and make sure the team is set up to deliver against business needs.
• Drive hiring outcomes across technical domains and hubs: take accountability for progress, quality, and delivery across Engineering hiring in our main hubs Barcelona, London and Kyiv, while personally owning complex and high‑impact searches.
• Build and optimise hiring processes: identify what slows us down, where quality drops, or where ownership is unclear – then improve the process so we can hire top talent in the most effective way.
• Track progress through data: run a strong weekly hiring rhythm, using funnel data, pipeline quality, pass‑through rates, time in stage, sourcing performance, and stakeholder feedback to understand what’s working and what needs to change.
• Flag risks early and solve them fast: spot blockers before they become bigger issues, bring clear recommendations, and work with TA, Engineering, and cross‑functional partners to keep hiring moving.
• Lead top‑of‑funnel strategy for Engineering: shape sourcing, talent mapping, talent intelligence, and employer branding in partnership with Marketing and Employer Brand.
• Build consistent, high‑quality pipelines for priority roles.
• Raise the hiring bar: define ideal candidate profiles, sharpen scorecards, lead calibration, and improve consistency in how we evaluate candidates across TA and hiring teams.
• Act as a player‑coach within the TA team: provide dotted‑line guidance to a small team of TA Partners, support prioritisation, coach on search strategy and stakeholder management, and help unblock execution.
• Elevate TA craft across the team: raise standards for candidate experience, sourcing quality, stakeholder management, data literacy, and business understanding.

What you’ll need to succeed:

• Expert‑level engineering recruiting craft. You run complex technical searches end to end, care deeply about candidate experience, and consistently deliver strong outcomes on hard‑to‑fill roles.
• Strong in‑house recruiting experience. You’ve partnered closely with Engineering Directors, VPs, CTOs, or similarly senior technical stakeholders and earned their trust.
• Experience turning workforce plans into hiring strategies. You take business priorities and headcount plans and translate them into clear, sequenced, actionable hiring plans with strong process and execution discipline: operating rhythms, weekly tracking, early risk flags, multiple tracks moving in parallel.
• A track record of improving hiring systems at scale. You’ve raised pipeline quality, pass‑through rates, sourcing performance, or hiring predictability across teams or locations, including through AI and technology.
• Experience leading calibration and quality. You’ve defined hiring bars, built or refined scorecards, and helped hiring teams make better, more consistent decisions. You use data and evidence to drive those conversations.
• A strong IC mindset with a genuine interest in growing as a people leader. You take pride in excellent recruiting work and want to stay close to the craft, while also being excited to coach, mentor, and develop other recruiters through formal or informal leadership.
• Strong influence and communication skills. You create clarity, challenge thoughtfully, and build trust with senior stakeholders and peers.
• A team‑first, low‑ego approach. Collaborative, generous with knowledge, and motivated by raising the bar for Engineering hiring and the TA function overall.
• Fluency in English and readiness to work from Barcelona, London, or Kyiv, or openness to relocating to join us in Barcelona.

Why you’ll love it at Preply:

• An open, collaborative, dynamic and diverse culture.
• Generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com.
• Learning & Development budget, including time off for your self‑development.
• Competitive financial package with equity, and leave allowance.
• Opportunity to shape the lives of learners and tutors from over 175 countries through language learning and teaching.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Preply.com is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people of diverse backgrounds can thrive. We believe that the presence of different opinions and viewpoints is a key ingredient for our success as a multicultural Ed-Tech company. That means that Preply will consider all applications for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or veteran status.