Talent Acquisition & HR Lead - AI/SaaS

ZENSKAR - PLAYER-COACH TALENT ACQUISITION LEAD About the Role: Zenskar is in hyper-growth mode, scaling past 100+ full-time employees across India and the US. We are building an A-lister team and scalable people processes-not just solving the next few hires. We are looking for a Player-Coach Talent Acquisition leader who can own talent acquisition end-to-end while helping shape the HR side of the function as it grows. This role is approximately 80% Talent Acquisition and 20% HR mentoring/support. You will lead a team of 3 across TA/HR and interns while remaining hands-on as an IC recruiter. What You'll Own? Talent Acquisition (~80%): - Sourcing & Pipeline: Build and run sourcing strategies for open roles and maintain strong pipelines so hiring managers are never waiting. - Co-founder & Hiring Manager Partnership: Sharpen JDs, run intake calls, and drive timely, clear feedback from hiring managers. - Candidate Experience: Own a fast, structured and respectful process from first outreach through offer. - Agency & Vendor Coordination: Manage external recruiting agencies where required, including US hiring, and hold them accountable for quality and turnaround. - Reporting & Process: Track pipeline health, time-to-fill and source effectiveness; identify bottlenecks before they become escalations. - Onboarding Handoff: Partner with Ops/Admin to ensure a smooth transition from offer acceptance to onboarding. HR Mentoring & Support (~20%): - Mentor the HR team as a sounding board for judgment calls, escalations and unfamiliar situations. - Help shape performance frameworks, policies and processes without owning day-to-day HR execution. - Connect TA and HR by bringing market insights, compensation benchmarks, candidate expectations and attrition signals into HR frameworks. What This Role Is? - A doer's seat: You will source, screen and close candidates yourself-not just manage a dashboard. - Coach & Manage: Manage TA/HR team members and their outcomes. - Built for Range: Move between closing candidates, advising on HR frameworks and coaching teammates in the same week. - Growth Track: A natural path toward a broader TA/HR leadership role as the company and function scale. Best Fit: - 9-12 years of experience in Talent Acquisition, with genuine curiosity or prior exposure to HR/HRBP work. - Comfortable owning full-cycle recruiting independently-from sourcing through offer-without heavy hand-holding. - Experience managing a team of 2+ people across TA/HR. - Startup experience preferred; comfortable with ambiguity and building processes rather than inheriting them. - Prior experience at a high-growth Series A-D B2B AI/SaaS company where you helped scale the TA motion during a growth phase. - Experience seeing headcount scale from approximately 80 employees to 300+. - Direct, plain communicator with candidates, hiring managers, agencies and the HR team. - Experience hiring US roles from India is a strong plus, given the market gap and complexity of running this market solo. Ideal Candidate Profile: A hands-on TA leader who can independently close critical hires, build scalable recruiting systems, manage and coach a small team, partner confidently with founders and hiring managers, and bring practical market insight into HR decision-making.