Director of Talent Acquisition

WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN OUR TEAM

Imagine stepping into a role where hiring is not just a function, but a strategic growth engine for an AI-native company. As Director of Talent Acquisition, you will architect how Smartcat scales globally, building a hiring engine that blends human judgment with AI teammates to deliver exceptional talent at speed and quality.

You won’t just fill roles. You will shape the future of how we plan, attract, and hire talent in a company that is redefining what productivity and performance look like. In a culture that is deeply results-oriented, acts fast, and values ownership, you will have the autonomy and expectation to challenge leaders, push for better outcomes, and continuously raise the bar on talent density across the company.

This is a role for someone who sees Talent Acquisition as a strategic lever for business performance, not a service function.  Because this role works closely with team members based in Europe, it is expected to follow East Coast hours, typically starting around 8:00 AM EST to ensure strong overlap in working time.

MISSION

Reporting to the VP of People, you will build and lead a global, AI-first Talent Acquisition function that consistently delivers high-quality hires aligned to Smartcat’s growth goals and increasing talent density.

You will partner closely with FP&A and executive leadership to drive proactive, data-driven headcount planning, ensuring we hire the right people, at the right time, in the right locations.

You will lead a distributed TA team across the US and Europe, while managing external partners, and establishing a scalable hiring engine that leverages AI teammates to accelerate execution, improve decision-making, and reduce manual work.

In an AI-native company where AI is not a tool but how we operate, you will redefine how recruiting gets done, shifting from reactive hiring to predictive, system-driven talent acquisition

OUTCOMES

• Increase Talent Density Across the Organization: Partner with leadership to ensure we are not just hiring, but upgrading the overall talent bar. Push back when needed, influence hiring decisions, and ensure every hire meaningfully raises the performance of the team.
• Deliver Quarterly Hiring Goals with Precision and Quality: Own and deliver all global hiring targets each quarter, ensuring we meet business needs while continuously raising the bar on talent density. You are accountable not just for speed, but for quality of hire and long-term impact.
• Build an AI-First Talent Acquisition Engine: Embed AI into every stage of recruiting, from sourcing to interview insights to decision-making. Implement AI-driven workflows that reduce manual effort by at least 30% and enable the team to operate faster and with better signal.
• Drive Strategic Headcount Planning with FP&A and Leadership: Partner closely with FP&A and executive leaders to forecast hiring needs, model different growth scenarios, and plan for hiring peaks and troughs. Bring rigor, data, and perspective to challenge assumptions and ensure disciplined hiring decisions.
• Build and Lead a High-Performing Global TA Team: Manage and develop a team of at least 3 recruiters across the US and Europe. Create a culture of ownership, speed, and continuous improvement, where the team operates with urgency and accountability.
• Own and Optimize External Recruiting Partnerships: Manage and hold third-party agencies accountable for performance, ensuring they deliver high-quality candidates aligned to our standards and timelines. Continuously evaluate ROI and optimize vendor strategy.
• Be a Strategic Partner to the Business: Act as a trusted advisor to executives and hiring managers. Challenge hiring plans, calibrate expectations, and ensure alignment between business goals and talent strategy.

HOW YOU’LL RAMP

By Day 30:

• Become a power user of our recruiting and AI ecosystem, including Greenhouse as our ATS, sourcing tools, and AI teammates that support hiring workflows
• Deeply understand Smartcat’s business model, growth strategy, and hiring needs across functions and geographies to hire at least 90% of projected hires per quarter.  
• Build relationships with FP&A, executive leaders, and hiring managers to understand current and future hiring plans
• Assess current recruiting processes, pipelines, and partner performance, identifying immediate opportunities for improvement
• Present a 60-90 day plan to the VP of People on improvements to make and how we should implement them
  
  

By Day 60:

• Begin driving hiring execution across priority roles, improving speed and candidate quality as measured by at least 85% retention rate of all new hires
• Partner with FP&A to refine headcount forecasts and align hiring plans with business goals to ensure that 100% of all projected hires per quarter are made.
• Implement initial AI-driven improvements to sourcing, screening, or interview processes
• Start to coach and elevate the TA team, setting clear expectations for performance and accountability
• Establish stronger rigor with external partners, including clear KPIs and performance tracking
  
  

By Day 90:

• Build a predictable hiring engine that can flex with business needs, handling both rapid growth and slower periods with discipline
• Fully own global hiring delivery and forecasting, with clear visibility into pipeline health and risks
• Launch a scalable, AI-first recruiting workflow that improves efficiency and decision-making
• Present a 12-month Talent Acquisition strategy, aligned with company growth and talent density goals
• Establish yourself as a trusted partner to executives, confidently pushing back and influencing hiring decisions
  
  

WHAT YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED:

• You operate with a results-first, data-driven mindset, taking ownership for outcomes rather than just activity, and consistently raising the standard for performance
• You have a track record of delivering against aggressive hiring targets without compromising on quality by using a data-driven approach and AI-first methodologies
• You have built and led high-performing Talent Acquisition teams in fast-scaling, global organizations
• You have successfully partnered with FP&A and executive leadership on headcount planning and workforce strategy
• You have implemented AI or automation into recruiting workflows, significantly improving efficiency and outcomes
• You know how to balance speed with rigor, and are comfortable challenging leaders to ensure the right hiring decisions are made
• You are a strong people leader who develops teams, sets a high bar, and creates accountability

Mission:

The Head of AI will play a key role in driving the success of Smartcat’s mission to become the end-to-end Language AI platform for global enterprises. In this role, you will shape Smartcat's AI strategy, unlocking the potential of AI to create new, innovative use cases or reinvent existing user experiences, delivering measurable value to our enterprise clients in multilingual content generation, translation, and analysis.

Outcomes:

• Create, enhance, and maintain Smartcat’s AI strategy, solidifying our market position as the leading Language AI platform for enterprises
• Lead with a vision on the future of AI, anticipating where the industry is heading and how to create strong tech IP and defensibility in the areas that are aligned with the company strategy
• There are three high-impact areas to focus on over the next 12 months:
• Language AI Quality: Smartcat delivers distinctly higher quality in AI-generated translations and content for enterprise customers, thanks to continuous feedback from their employees, which helps improve AI output. Your goal will be to introduce a holistic approach to measuring language quality across various use cases for translation and multilingual content generation. You will aim to achieve consistent improvement in these metrics quarter over quarter for our enterprise customers, significantly reducing the required editing effort on their end. (We are already making progress in this area and have achieved measurable results, but there is still enormous potential for innovation and breakthroughs.)
  You will also lead the development of a systematic technological approach to AI quality customization, using use case-specific AI agents integrated with our platform and data layers.
• Redesigning Product Experiences: Working with the UI/UX and other product teams, you will redesign every existing product experience and use case with an AI-first approach, focusing on improvements in quality, turnaround time, and creating innovative user experiences.
• AI-Driven Customer Lifecycle: Smartcat has strong inbound and PLG/PLS motions, with thousands of new verified logos signing up on the platform every quarter. You will lead the creation of an AI-driven customer lifecycle product within the Smartcat platform, leveraging real-time data on each user’s intent and in-product actions to deliver best-in-class, customized onboarding and support experiences. This product will also tailor the overall UX and guide users through their next steps within the platform.
• You will continue building and managing a team of top AI/ML engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, urgency, and customer-centricity.

Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience as an Engineering and Product leader with at least 2+ years leading AI/ML unit for a tech company
• A deep understanding of the current state of ML and AI, along with a natural passion and curiosity to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving AI landscape and drive innovation within it.Experience creating and driving a strategic AI roadmap with the ability to inspire and align a team
• Strategic mindset with a proactive approach to identifying opportunities and challenges
• Ability to effectively present and communicate at the executive and board level
• Readiness to work in a highly intense startup environment requiring extreme focus, a strong sense of ownership, and persistence to breakthrough
• Openness to constructive feedback and the opinions and ideas of others
• Strong preference to consider candidates who live on the East Coast, Boston or New York area, but will consider other areas for the right candidate. 
• Native-level fluency in English, both written and spoken