Founding Talent Partner in London

Location: Remote (UK)

Employment Type: Full time

Location Type: Remote

Department: Operations

Compensation: €60K – €85K • 0.1% – 0.2%

Summary of the Role: As Founding Talent Partner at Maze, you will be the architect of our talent engine, owning the mission-critical challenge of building one of the most talent-dense teams in the UK tech ecosystem. This is a unique opportunity to join as the first dedicated talent hire at a well-funded startup building at the intersection of generative AI and cybersecurity. You will work directly with our VP of Operations and founders to source, assess, and hire exceptional people across the business—with a particular focus on scaling our engineering team from 15 to 35-40 people over the next 18 months.

Your Contributions to Our Journey:

• Own Proactive Sourcing at Scale: Build diverse, high-quality candidate pipelines through direct sourcing, leveraging your network, creative outreach strategies, and deep knowledge of where exceptional talent lives.
• Conduct Rigorous Screening: Run high-quality first-round screening calls across all functions, with particular depth in engineering roles, credibly assessing technical concepts and accurately predicting which candidates will succeed at Maze.
• Scale Engineering Excellence: Partner closely with engineering leadership to hire 20+ engineers over the next 18 months, understanding the nuances of each role and building a team that maintains our high-performance culture as we grow.
• Drive Interview Process Excellence: Own end-to-end interview coordination, ensuring processes move at startup speed while delivering exceptional candidate experience and robust assessment of every hire.
• Partner with Hiring Managers: Build trusted relationships with hiring managers across all departments, deeply understanding their needs, challenging briefs when appropriate, and becoming a strategic partner in building their teams.
• Manage Agency Relationships: Strategically leverage external agency partners for specific searches while maintaining primary focus on direct sourcing capabilities.
• Build Employer Brand: Strengthen our presence on job boards, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and through our company offsites.

What You Need to Be Successful:

• Proven Engineering Hiring Track Record: Demonstrable experience sourcing and hiring engineers at fast-growth tech companies.
• Ownership of Hiring Outcomes: You have owned talent acquisition for a function or business area.
• Elite Sourcing Capabilities: Exceptional at proactively finding and engaging passive candidates.
• High-Bar Environment Experience: You have worked at companies known for talent density and rigorous hiring standards.
• UK and European Market Expertise: Direct experience hiring across UK and European markets.
• Speed with Quality: Ability to move fast without sacrificing rigour.
• Exceptional Communication: Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.

Nice to Haves:

• Experience hiring AI/ML talent specifically.
• A stint at a larger tech company combined with startup experience.
• Interest in broader people operations work.
• Experience building out a talent function or team from scratch.
• Cybersecurity or B2B SaaS industry exposure.

Why Join Us:

• Ambitious Challenge: We are using generative AI to solve pressing challenges in cybersecurity.
• Expert Team: We are a team of hands-on leaders with experience in Big Tech and Scale-ups.
• Impactful Mission: Embark on an important mission to protect humans from cybercrime.
• Build an AI-Native Company: We are building a new company in the AI era.
• Foster Innovation Culture: Create an environment where people can learn and master their craft.
• Career Growth: Clear path to Head of Talent Acquisition.

Compensation Range: €60K - €85K