About the RoleEverything we sell is people. The elite teams we embed into client operations are only as good as the talent we put in the room, which means recruiting isn't a support function here. It's how the business is built.
That's what Recruiters at Tenex are hired to own. This is a craft role, and a lean one. We run recruiting with a small team, which means you own your searches full cycle, from the first outbound note to the signed offer, for the AI Strategists, Forward-Deployed Engineers, and operators who go straight into our toughest client work. There's no large team to hand work off to. You're the first person a candidate meets and the one accountable for whether they're sharp enough to clear our bar.
You won't work off a req list. We expect you to take ambiguous, high-level direction from a hiring manager and turn it into a sharp, targeted search, knowing exactly who you want before the role even opens. You'll hold strong opinions on talent, defend them with evidence, and push back when the bar is at risk. Searches are owned, not handed off, so context never gets lost between stages.
Two roles make up most of your pipeline: Forward-Deployed Engineers and AI Strategists. Those are the searches you'll run again and again, with the occasional ad hoc role mixed in as the business needs it. Going deep on these two profiles, knowing exactly what great looks like and where to find it, is most of the job.
We don't recruit the way most firms do. We expect you to live in the modern agentic AI stack as a daily practitioner, using it at every stage from sourcing to screening to closing, compressing a search that used to take a month into something faster. You're a sourcer at heart who doesn't wait for inbound.
The goal is simple to state and hard to hit: the people you place should raise the bar of the firm, measured by the quality of who joins and how fast we close the searches that matter. Nothing else really counts.
This role will report to our operations leader and partners closely with hiring managers across Strategy and Engineering. Plan on being in the office five days a week with the rest of the team.
What You'll Do- Own full-cycle recruiting for our two core searches, Forward-Deployed Engineers and AI Strategists, plus ad hoc roles as they come up, from first touch to signed offer
- Partner closely with hiring managers to understand each role deeply, then translate abstract asks into concrete target lists, calibration, and a close plan
- Build deeply targeted sourcing strategies. Know the companies, the teams, and the individual people worth pursuing before a search opens
- Run candidate process with urgency and care. Same-day follow-up, next steps booked before you hang up, no candidate left chasing us
- Use the agentic AI stack hands-on across sourcing, screening, and closing, and push the team on where to automate next
- Manage pipeline data with integrity and bring evidence to calibration conversations. Spot funnel problems early instead of relying on gut
- Drive offers end to end, including extending, negotiating, and closing
- Protect the bar. You're the filter that keeps high-agency, high-urgency people moving forward and everyone else out
- Lead the work that raises how recruiting operates here: interview loops, scorecards, interviewer training, and the playbooks the rest of the talent team runs on the next search
What You'll Bring- 5+ years of full-cycle recruiting or sourcing experience at a high-growth technology company or startup
- A track record hiring for genuinely hard roles. You can hold a credible conversation with a hiring manager about the work, not just the title, and walk through exactly who you placed and why they cleared the bar
- Daily, hands-on use of the modern agentic AI stack across every stage of the funnel (Claude, Cowork, ChatGPT, and whatever ships next week). You don't just know these tools, you recruit with them, and you're a sourcer at heart who doesn't wait for inbound
- A strong storyteller in writing and conversation who follows up without being chased
- Comfortable influencing at every level of an organization, anchored on data rather than gut
- Operationally sharp and detail-oriented. You build systems, keep a clean pipeline, and create structure when the path isn't fully drawn yet
- Genuine care for the candidate experience. How someone is treated through the process is as much a reflection of Tenex as the offer itself
- High ownership, low ego, and a builder's instinct
Bonus Points- Background recruiting technical or strategy talent at an AI-forward company, a fast-growth startup, or a top search firm
- Experience standing up recruiting process and tooling from scratch as a team scaled
CompensationOTE is $105,000 to $160,000, depending on experience. Recruiters will earn a performance-based discretionary bonus tied to hiring outcomes and contributions to the function. Compensation may also include equity and other long-term incentives.
Benefits- Comprehensive medical (PPO and HSA options), dental, and vision
- HSA, Healthcare FSA, and Commuter Benefits
- 100% employer-paid life insurance + AD&D
- 100% employer-paid long-term disability insurance
- Responsible PTO. Take what you need.
Our WorkplaceWe work in person from our New York City office five days a week. The best ideas come from being in the same room. Faster collaboration, real-time problem solving, stronger relationships, sharper execution.
