Executive Recruiter

Baseten

Executive Recruiter leading VP- and C-suite hiring at an AI company. Collaborating with the CEO and executive team to build internal recruiting capabilities.

Posted 5/18/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesSeniorLead💰 $180,000 - $210,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Cloud

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own end-to-end executive searches. Lead VP- and C-suite hiring across Engineering, GTM, Finance, Product, and Operations — from intake and role scoping through offer close. You'll run 6–10 active searches at any given time with full accountability for outcomes.
Partner directly with the CEO and executive team. Serve as the primary recruiting advisor for our most critical hires — shaping role definitions, structuring scorecards, advising on leveling, and driving alignment across decision-makers before a search ever goes live.
Build and own executive talent pipelines. Proactively source, map, and cultivate relationships with senior leaders across AI infrastructure, cloud, and enterprise SaaS — before we have open roles, not after.
Conduct high-signal executive assessments. Run structured screens that go deep on leadership behaviors, operating cadence, functional depth, and values alignment — and develop frameworks that help our teams evaluate consistently.
Navigate complex, confidential searches. Handle sensitive situations — backfill searches, competing internal candidates, re-leveling — with discretion, sound judgment, and clear communication to stakeholders.
Manage offer strategy and close. Lead the full compensation conversation for senior roles, partnering with People and Finance to build compelling packages and navigate complex negotiations with poise.
Deliver market and talent intelligence. Provide the executive team with real-time insight on leadership talent availability, competitor moves, compensation benchmarks, and organizational trends that inform our hiring and people strategy.
Build the executive recruiting function. Establish the processes, templates, tools, and norms that make Baseten's executive search practice repeatable and excellent — reducing reliance on retained search firms over time.

Requirements

What you’ll need

An experienced executive search professional. You have 8+ years in recruiting, with at least 4 years focused exclusively on VP- and C-suite searches — either in-house at a high-growth tech company, at a retained search firm, or both. You've closed complex leadership hires, not just moved them through a funnel.
A trusted partner to senior leaders. You know how to earn the confidence of a CEO or CFO — not by being agreeable, but by being honest, prepared, and consistently right. You push back when the brief is wrong and bring structure to ambiguous situations.
A world-class sourcer and networker. You find people who aren't on job boards and build relationships years before you need them. You know how to get a cold email read by a sitting VP of Engineering or a Chief Revenue Officer.
Discreet and high-judgment. You understand that executive searches require a different kind of care. You handle sensitive information with maturity, manage competing stakeholder interests without drama, and know when to escalate and when to absorb.
Rigorous and structured. You use scorecards, structured interviews, and clear evaluation criteria — not gut feel. You're data-aware, and you hold yourself and hiring teams accountable to a high and consistent bar.
Comfortable at a high-growth startup. You've operated in a fast-moving environment where the org chart changes quickly and you sometimes don't have all the information you'd like. You thrive in that ambiguity rather than retreating from it.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity.
100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)
Paid parental leave
Fertility and family-building stipend through Carrot
Company-facilitated 401(k)
Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

executive searchVP hiringC-suite hiringleadership assessmentsstructured interviewsscorecardscompensation negotiationtalent intelligencesourcingnetworking

Soft Skills

communicationdiscretionjudgmentrelationship buildingtrustworthinessrigoradaptabilityproblem-solvinginfluenceaccountability