Recruiter

AfterQuery is an applied research lab curating data solutions for foundation model development. We serve every frontier AI lab with the mission of delivering the best data to power the best models. In doing so, we can make expertise that once took a lifetime to build available to anyone who needs it.

Our customers are the ones building the foundation models themselves and our work sits directly in the loop of how those systems improve. This is a rare opportunity to join a company at a defining moment in AI. We are YC's fastest unicorn, valued at $3.2 billion. We're based in San Francisco and backed by leading investors including Altos Ventures, BoxGroup, and Y Combinator and angels from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Microsoft AI.

Massive Opportunity: We are YC's fastest unicorn valued at $3.2 billion and we're not slowing down.

Founding Impact: You will own and architect core infrastructure systems that power our platform from the ground up.

Equity & Growth: Competitive salary and meaningful equity. As we scale, you’ll have the opportunity to shape the engineering organization and lead major technical initiatives.

Strong Team: Our founding team has experience from Citadel Securities, Meta, Google, Silver Lake, and Morgan Stanley — work alongside world-class engineers and researchers.

This is a Business Recruiter role, working closely with our Lead Business Recruiter and the founding team. You will drive full-cycle hiring for our business and operations functions — Strategic Projects, Operations, GTM, and every business-side function we build out — using the sourcing engine, interview rubrics, and closing motion the team is building to bring in elite talent across every business-side hire we make.

You should be excited to recruit at the same caliber bar that built the rest of the team — Jane Street, Citadel Securities, Meta, Google, Palantir, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Silver Lake, MBB consulting, top PE, and top hedge funds. The most consequential talent in the market is increasingly choosing AI. We need someone who can identify it, get them in the room, and close.

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  Run full-cycle recruiting for AfterQuery's business and operations roles — sourcing, screening, interviewing, and closing top-tier candidates across Strategic Project Operations, GTM, and other key business functions we build out.

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  Build deep, proactive talent pipelines from elite finance, consulting, PE, and tech firms — the same caliber bar as our existing team — and convert them.

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  Partner with the Lead Business Recruiter and the executive team to define hiring profiles, prioritize searches, and run rigorous interview processes that test for agency, drive, and judgment.

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  Support recruiting infrastructure across the company — scorecards, interview rubrics, sourcing tooling, the candidate experience, and the offer-and-close motion that turns interest into signed contracts.

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  Close candidates and represent AfterQuery's mission, momentum, and opportunity compellingly to the highest-bar talent in the market.

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  Treat recruiting as a measurable function — track your funnel, model conversion at every stage, and iterate on what's working.

• 4-7+ years of experience across agency and in-house recruiting. A track record of identifying, attracting, and closing strong talent.

• Intense work ethic, agency, and drive. You're a builder first, and thrive in ambiguity.

• Competitive nature and demonstrated past success across whatever you've done.

• Strong communication skills — you can hold your own opposite a founder, a Jane Street trader, or a GTM leader, and you build pipelines that founders trust.

• A genuine interest in the AfterQuery thesis: that the future of AI is bottlenecked on human data, and that the talent generating, designing, and bringing that data to market is the most important hiring decision the company makes.

• High agency, low ego, speedy but thoughtful. Comfortable in a 5-day in-office SF environment that prizes speed and direct feedback.

• Experience recruiting at a top executive search firm (e.g., Spencer Stuart, Heidrick, Egon Zehnder, Russell Reynolds, True Search, Daversa), a strong in-house recruiting team, or a high-growth tech/AI startup.

• Prior experience hiring for finance, consulting, PE, or operationally rigorous business roles — and a personal network in those pools.

• Making a pivot into AI from a strong track record elsewhere — finance, consulting, search, or operating roles — with demonstrated success.