Founding People & Talent Lead

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