TA Lead / Head of Talent Acquisition Consumer Tech & DeepTech

Location: Gurugram

Experience: 8-12 years

Reporting To: Founders

About the Opportunity:

Our client is a founder-led, early-stage business group building two differentiated technology ventures, one in the consumer internet ecosystem and the other in AI-led deep technology.

They are looking for a hands-on TA Lead / Head of Talent Acquisition to build and lead the talent acquisition function across both ventures. The role will work closely with the founders and functional leaders to translate business priorities into workforce plans, establish the TA function from 0-to-1, and drive hiring across levels and functions.

This position combines strategic workforce planning with hands-on talent mapping, sourcing, candidate assessment, offer management and closure.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Talent Strategy and Workforce Planning:

- Translate business plans into annual and quarterly workforce plans by company, function, level, location and priority.

- Partner with founders and functional leaders on organisation design, role charters, hiring sequence, budgets and delivery timelines.

- Prioritise requirements across critical, leadership and scale-hiring mandates.

- Provide market intelligence on talent availability, compensation, titles, location strategy and competitor hiring activity.

2. Hiring Across Levels and Functions:

- Own end-to-end hiring across entry-level, mid-management, senior-management and leadership positions.

- Lead hiring across product, engineering, design, growth, community, brand, media and commercial functions.

- Build specialised teams across AI/ML, computer vision, backend and systems engineering, hardware, product, QA, business development and strategic partnerships.

- Personally lead critical and leadership searches, including talent mapping, passive candidate engagement, assessment, references, offer strategy and closure.

- Create repeatable hiring processes for functional and scale requirements as the organisations grow.

3. 0-to-1 TA Function Building:

- Build the talent acquisition function from the ground up, including intake processes, job descriptions, competency-based scorecards and structured interviews.

- Establish an appropriate ATS, recruitment dashboards and a consistent reporting cadence.

- Define hiring governance, decision rights, service levels and interviewer responsibilities.

- Build processes for candidate communication, offer approvals, documentation, references, background checks and onboarding hand-offs.

- Determine the right mix of internal recruiters, search firms, specialist partners, communities, campuses and external agencies.

4. Founder and Leadership Partnership:

- Operate as a trusted talent adviser to the founders and senior leadership team.

- Challenge unclear hiring briefs, provide realistic market perspectives and support organisation-building decisions.

- Run a structured weekly hiring cadence covering priorities, funnel health, feedback, risks and next steps.

- Coach hiring managers on structured assessment and evidence-based selection.

- Deliver a high-touch candidate experience, particularly for senior, passive and specialised talent.

5. Employer Brand and Talent Ecosystem:

- Develop compelling employer propositions aligned with the mission, culture and stage of both ventures.

- Build targeted talent communities and sourcing channels across consumer internet, technology startups, AI and deep-tech ecosystems.

- Use candidate and market feedback to improve role design, interview processes and compensation decisions.

- Represent the businesses across relevant professional networks, communities and hiring partnerships.

Desired Profile:

- 8-12 years of experience in talent acquisition, executive search or a combination of both.

- Experience within the consumer internet, technology startup or high-growth digital ecosystem.

- Proven experience building or materially transforming a talent acquisition function in a 0-to-1 or early-stage environment.

- Demonstrated success in hiring across functions and levelsfrom individual contributors and mid-management to senior leadership and specialist roles.

- Strong hands-on capability in talent research, market mapping, passive sourcing, candidate engagement and closure.

- Experience partnering directly with founders, CXOs and senior functional leaders.

- Exposure to product, engineering, growth and consumer-tech hiring is important; experience across AI/ML, deep-tech or hardware would be advantageous.

- Experience establishing ATS discipline, recruitment dashboards, structured interviews and hiring governance.

- Strong executive presence, stakeholder-management skills and the confidence to advise and challenge senior leaders constructively.

- High ownership, pace, resilience, integrity and comfort operating in an ambiguous, founder-led environment.

- Willingness to work from Gurugram with a high degree of in-person collaboration.

Why Consider This Opportunity?:

This is an opportunity to build two differentiated talent engines from first principles while working directly with founders at a formative stage. The role offers significant breadth across consumer technology and deep-tech, along with the opportunity to shape organisation design, leadership hiring, employer brand and the operating culture of both businesses.