Head of Talent

About the role

ABOUT PILGRIM: Pilgrim is building America’s biology prime - engineering, manufacturing, and deploying advanced biotechnology for defense and national security. Our primary platform, ARGUS, is a fully autonomous system for detecting biological threats in near real time, from naturally occurring pathogens to engineered agents. We engineer hardware for biology, turning breakthrough science into fielded capabilities. Based in Redwood City, our team brings together mechanical and electrical engineering, chemistry, and biology under one roof to deliver critical technologies to the people who need them. Pilgrim has raised over $30 million to date and is backed by Peter Thiel, Brian Armstrong, Fred Ehrsam, Dylan Field, and Bryan Johnson, alongside Buckley Ventures, Conviction, Cantos, and others. ABOUT THE ROLE: As Head of Talent at Pilgrim, you will direct the hiring of engineers, scientists, and operators who will deploy critical biotechnology for the nation. You will own recruiting end to end across the company, defining roles, designing interview processes, identifying effective sourcing channels, assessing candidates, and onboarding new hires. Ultimately, there are people who should be working at Pilgrim but are not. Your job is to find them. RESPONSIBILITIES: - Source, screen, and assess candidates across engineering, science, operations, and other critical functions. - Build outbound and inbound recruiting channels. Proactively identify and engage exceptional candidates. - Map the technical communities and undiscovered networks where Pilgrim's best candidates come from, and build trusted paths into them. - Build relationships with labs, founders, operators, professors, and others who know where top talent is hiding. - Work closely with the founding team to define role requirements, translate them into search criteria, and design interview processes that connect candidates with the right internal experts. - Run the full process, from first contact through interviews, pilot, references, offer, and close. - Own the recruiting operating system including the ATS, internal support, external recruiters, sourcing workflows, interview processes, and pipeline reporting. - Build AI-enabled recruiting tools and workflows that expand sourcing reach and increase efficiency. QUALIFICATIONS: - Prior experience supporting or leading technical recruiting. - A track record of finding exceptional candidates in places where standard recruiting channels do not work well. - Demonstrated ability to distinguish truly world-class individuals from merely competent ones and to quickly discern who is and is not a fit. - Experience using an ATS, such as Ashby or Greenhouse, along with recruiting tools like Attio, Juicebox, Claude, and similar platforms. - Experience planning and running communities, sponsored events, technical gatherings, university sessions, dinners, or other events that bring relevant people into the company’s orbit. Pilgrim is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Certain positions require access to export-controlled information and are limited to U.S. Persons as defined by applicable export control regulations.