Founding Talent Partner

Your role

We are building the most talent-dense company in London. That is the mandate you are being hired for.

Hiring is one of the company’s top priorities, and it shows: Founders are in the process, they move fast on strong candidates, and they hold the bar. Until now, hiring has been run directly by founders and Operations. There is a working process, a live ATS, real pipelines and roles being filled. What there isn’t yet is someone whose whole job is to make it exceptional.

That is you. As Founding Talent Partner you own hiring end to end, across every function: engineering, design, partnerships, implementation, support, operations and finance. You understand what exceptional looks like at Saturn, go and find it, and hold the bar when a role gets hard to fill.

You will also build the function. The interview architecture, the ATS, the sourcing engine and the hiring data are yours to sharpen, and every search you run leaves behind infrastructure.

It is an intense seat. Concurrent searches, a high bar and hiring decisions the whole company feels. You are never carrying it alone. Do this well and the function grows around you, with a team to lead.

The Team

Small and high-calibre by design. Everyone here is someone the rest of the company learns from, and at our stage that quality is fragile: every hire is visible, every hire compounds, and one wrong hire is felt across the company.

You will be the first dedicated talent hire. That comes with real autonomy, real support, and real accountability. What you learn in the market becomes how Saturn hires.

You will report to our Head of Operations, who has been running hiring to date and will hand it over properly rather than throw you, also collaborating weekly with the Founders on headcount planning, prioritisation and closing, and directly with every function leader on their roles.

What You’ll Do

• Own end-to-end hiring across every function, from intake and sourcing through screening, interview management, offer and close, for technical, commercial and central roles.
• Source and manage a high volume of candidates through direct outreach, referrals, communities, events and market mapping, keeping tight feedback loops with hiring managers and founders.
• Build deep partnerships with the founders and function leaders: run headcount planning, calibrate profiles, challenge assumptions on what “good” looks like, and execute against the hiring plan.
• Take the existing process and make it excellent: structured interview loops per function, scorecards, interviewer calibration and training, and best practice that holds as the team scales.
• Own the ATS end to end. Clean data for reporting, disciplined pipeline hygiene, resurfaced silver medallists, job posts, pre-hire checks, and agency relationships only where they earn their place.
• Own pipeline analytics: funnel conversion, time-to-fill, source effectiveness, interview-to-offer ratios, and offer-acceptance rates. Surface insights weekly to hiring managers, the Head of Operations and the founders.
• Translate data into action: diagnose bottlenecks, recommend interventions, and report results to stakeholders in a format they can act on.
• Develop a deep understanding of the mission, the product and the regulation so you can pitch the opportunity credibly and close people who have other options on the table.
• Run offers with judgement: benchmark the market, advise on levelling and equity, negotiate, and close.
• Build long-range talent strategies grounded in pipeline data, including referral programmes, sourcing channel optimisation, talent pools and process automation.
• Build Saturn’s talent brand alongside the founders and Marketing: content, events, referrals and a story about the problem that makes strong people seek us out.
• Conduct screens with a high signal-to-noise ratio, demonstrated by strong interview-to-offer conversion.
• Drive diverse talent into the company and deliver a candidate experience that holds up regardless of outcome, through proactive and transparent communication.

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years full-cycle recruiting, including time at a fast-growing Series A or B startup.
• Generalist track record: technical and commercial roles from the same seat, and the speed to get credible in an unfamiliar function fast.
• Expert direct sourcing in competitive markets, with the confidence to approach someone brilliant who has never heard of us, and the resourcefulness to reach people the obvious channels miss.
• Experience managing hiring-manager relationships: profile calibration, weekly pipeline reviews, and data-backed recommendations on strategy and prioritisation.
• Demonstrated ability to use pipeline data to drive decisions, including funnel analysis, conversion benchmarking and source ROI, and to report those insights to senior stakeholders.
• Proven ability to design and improve hiring process: structured interviews, scorecards, interviewer training, and a clean ATS others can rely on for reporting.
• Experience running multiple concurrent funnels and keeping candidates moving without drop-off.
• Exceptional at selling the opportunity, negotiating and closing, with a clear grasp of comp benchmarking and levelling.
• A bar you will defend. You have held a “no” that everyone wanted to be a “yes”, and been right. Talent density is built one of those at a time.
• The judgement to challenge. You can tell a founder their profile, process or bar is wrong and have them thank you for it.
• Clear, structured communication with candidates, plus care that outlasts the outcome.
• Desire to write the playbook rather than inherit one, and the long-term thinking to stay and see it pay off.
• No task is beneath you. Bias to action, autonomous, and highly collaborative across a small, fast-moving team.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary with regular appraisals
• Competitive equity package at an early stage company with high growth potential
• Our beautiful new five-floor office, “The Dome”, equipped with an onsite gym and roof terrace
• Best-in-class dental and medical insurance
• A dedicated budget for learning and professional development
• Access to an additional world-class gym and wellness centre two minutes from the office
• A tight-knit, ambitious team that cares deeply about quality and each other