Technical Recruiter

Location: San Francisco, California

Exa is an applied AI lab building a search engine unlike the world has ever seen. We build massive-scale infra to crawl the entire web, train state-of-the-art embedding models to process it, and design super high performant vector databases to retrieve over it. We now power search for Cursor, Cognition, HubSpot, and over 400,000 developers and have raised $350m from Lightspeed, Benchmark, and a16z.

Our ultimate goal is to build perfect search over all the world's information, far beyond Google. If you want to build massive-scale ML systems that will define the way the new AI world consumes information, this is the place for you.

We’re looking for a Technical Recruiter to help build our Exa family!

About the Role

As a Technical Recruiter at Exa, you’ll work directly with the founders and leadership team to scale our company. This isn’t a standard recruiting job—you’ll be recruiting in the age of AI, using in-house agentic systems built on top of our own search engine to supercharge the process. You’ll not only help build our early, world-class technical team, but also design the recruiting systems that let us scale rapidly. If you understand the SF tech/startup ecosystem and can speak the language of engineers (bonus if you can code yourself), you’ll thrive here.

What You’ll Do

- Own the technical recruiting cycle end-to-end: sourcing, outreach, interviews, and closing
- Represent Exa externally and convince top-tier engineers, researchers, and operators to join
- Partner with founders and team leads to scope roles and identify high-leverage hires
- Build and optimize recruiting systems and workflows using Exa’s in-house agentic search tools
- Experiment with creative sourcing strategies to stand out in the competitive SF startup market
- Help shape Exa’s talent brand and recruiting culture as we scale hyperspeed (1.5x+ headcount growth each quarter)

Desired Experience

- 2+ years of experience recruiting for technical roles in startups or high-growth tech companies
- Familiarity with SF startup culture—you know how to identify and attract top 1% startup talent
- Strong communication skills—you can tell a compelling story and sell a big vision
- Technical literacy (bonus if you can code or have a technical background). You’re expected to communicate our ongoing engineering projects to technical candidates.
- A builder mindset—you want to design recruiting systems, not just run them
- Comfort in a fast-moving, high-growth startup environment

We are open to sponsoring international candidates (e.g., STEM OPT, OPT, H1B, O1, E3). In addition to premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), we also offer fertility benefits and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees.

Exa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

Responsibilities

Own the technical recruiting cycle end-to-end: sourcing, outreach, interviews, and closing; Represent Exa externally and convince top-tier engineers, researchers, and operators to join; Partner with founders and team leads to scope roles and identify high-leverage hires; Build and optimize recruiting systems and workflows using Exa’s in-house agentic search tools; Experiment with creative sourcing strategies to stand out in the competitive SF startup market; Help shape Exa’s talent brand and recruiting culture as we scale hyperspeed

Requirements

2+ years of experience recruiting for technical roles in startups or high-growth tech companies; Familiarity with SF startup culture—you know how to identify and attract top 1% startup talent; Strong communication skills—you can tell a compelling story and sell a big vision; Technical literacy—you’re expected to communicate our ongoing engineering projects to technical candidates; A builder mindset—you want to design recruiting systems, not just run them; Comfort in a fast-moving, high-growth startup environment

Nice to have

Can code; Technical background

Benefits

Premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision); Fertility benefits; Monthly wellness stipend; Visa sponsorship for international candidates (STEM OPT, OPT, H1B, O1, E3)