Lead Recruiter in Palo Alto, California at Instrumental, Inc.

Instrumental builds the manufacturing acceleration platform behind the world's most complex electronics. We capture digital exhaust and engineering context from assembly lines — images, test logs, BOM data, performance, repair cycles — and our AI engines identify insights that are difficult or impossible for human engineers to find. We accelerate the companies building the AI era by improving manufacturing yield, throughput, and ramp. NVIDIA, Meta, L3Harris, and their manufacturing partners rely on Instrumental to accelerate new product introduction and production.
We're entering one of the most important periods in our company's history. Over the next year, we'll be building the team that defines Instrumental's next chapter — and the recruiter who joins now will shape that as much as anyone.
We're looking for a recruiter who closes searches other people give up on, and who does it in a way that makes the rest of the org want to work with them again. This isn't a role where you inherit a playbook and run it. You'll partner directly with founders, executives, and hiring managers — not just to fill roles, but to raise the bar on how we hire.
What You'll Be Doing:

• Close the searches that matter most. Own full-cycle recruiting for our hardest technical and business roles — the ones where the obvious sourcing plan doesn't work, and you have to build a new one.
• Make hiring managers better at hiring. You'll push back when a rubric is vague, a loop is testing the wrong thing, or a "no" doesn't hold up under scrutiny. You earn the standing to do this by being right, consistently, and by being someone people want in the room.
• Move fast without creating friction. You'll make judgment calls, iterate in real time, and adjust strategy mid-search — all while keeping hiring managers, candidates, and the rest of the team aligned and informed. No surprises, no dropped threads.
• Build the function as you go. Better sourcing strategies, smarter use of AI tools, a sharper candidate experience — you'll leave the recruiting org meaningfully better than you found it, and you'll do it in a way that earns buy-in rather than working around people.

This role probably isn't the right fit if...

• You want a well-defined process to run, rather than one to build and rebuild as the business changes.
• When a search stalls, you wait for direction instead of testing a new approach yourself.
• You've mostly recruited for brands candidates already want to work for — this job is proactive, not inbound.
• You measure success by "we made a hire" rather than "we made the right hire, and the team trusts how we got there."
• You've built a reputation for getting results at the cost of the people around you — trust and speed both matter here, not one traded for the other.

Requirements:

• 3+ years as a full-cycle technical recruiter at a fast-growing company (<100 people), as an early recruiting team member.
• A track record of closing difficult-to-fill engineering or technical searches — not just staffing easier roles well.
• Strong sourcing skills and real comfort engaging passive candidates.
• Evidence that hiring managers and leaders trusted your judgment and asked for you again — references or examples that speak to this are a plus.

We're a growing team that works collaboratively, supports each other, and is highly energized by the opportunity to make a large impact. We actively promote an inclusive environment, valuing passion and the ability to learn. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description!
The following is a representative annual base salary range for this position within the Bay Area: $170,000–$221,000. Job level and salary opportunities are evaluated through our interview process — we review the experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of each applicant.
Instrumental is proud to offer a highly-rated variety of benefits, including health, vision, dental, commuter plans, and parental leave. All candidates must have an unrestricted right to work in the U.S.
At Instrumental, protecting company and customer information is a shared responsibility. Employees are expected to handle sensitive employee, financial, and company information in accordance with company security, confidentiality, and privacy policies, and promptly report suspected security incidents or policy violations.