About the Role

A fast-growing, seed-stage AI company in Munich is hiring a Founding People & Talent Lead to build the Talent and People function from the ground up. Operating in a large, underserved market, this company automates inside sales workflows — quoting, order processing, and customer inquiry handling — for distributors and manufacturers using AI.

This is a high-impact, hands-on founding role working directly with leadership. You'll own end-to-end recruiting while progressively shaping how the company onboards, develops, and retains exceptional people as it scales across the DACH region and beyond.

What You'll Do

• Build and own the full hiring engine — leading recruiting end-to-end from role definition through to offer and close.

• Spend the majority of your early time on Talent: sourcing and closing exceptional candidates across all functions.

• Design and scale recruiting processes, analytics, workflows, and operating rhythms that enable fast, high-quality hiring.

• Partner with founders and team leads to define role expectations, calibrate hiring decisions, and challenge org design.

• Shape People systems over time — including onboarding, performance calibration, career progression, and compensation benchmarking.

• Develop and own employer branding to attract top talent across the DACH region and beyond.

• Build and nurture a pipeline network across universities, startups, and technical communities.

• Leverage AI tools and experiment with new workflows to increase recruiting velocity and quality.

• Champion a high hiring bar and implement standards-preserving measures as the team grows.

• Contribute to company culture with a long-term retention and development mindset.

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 2–5 years of experience with meaningful time in Talent, People, or org development at a high-growth startup or scaleup.

• Demonstrated experience leading end-to-end recruitment (role definition, sourcing, assessment, closing) in a hypergrowth context (e.g., 10→50 or 30→100 headcount).

• Structured thinker who can independently design, implement, and iterate on systems and processes.

• Daily user of AI tools with a genuine curiosity to experiment with new recruiting workflows.

• Strong storytelling and relationship-building skills with a proven track record closing senior candidates.

• Ability to build employer branding and a talent network to attract top candidates in the DACH region.

• Full fluency in English.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with performance calibration and compensation benchmarking as part of scaling People operations.

• German language skills.

• Background in enterprise software, AI, or B2B SaaS environments.

We actively encourage candidates who may grow into a broader People leadership role over time to apply.

Location

This role is on-site in Munich, Germany. Candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to Munich. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Compensation & Details

• Employment type: Full-time

• Stage: Seed (backed by a top-tier accelerator and institutional investors)

• Team size: Early-stage (under 20 people) — you'll be a key early hire

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