Lead - Talent Acquisition

Roles & Responsibilities:

As the Talent Acquisition & HR at Zenskar, you will be a strategic leader responsible for shaping how we find, attract, assess, hire, and support talent - across functions, levels, and regions.

You will lead and scale the TA & HR function, building structure, accountability, and strong hiring partnerships as we grow across India and the US. This role combines hands-on executive hiring with the founders, function-level leadership, process excellence, and people operations ownership.

You will:

• Own hiring across India end-to-end
• Build and scale US hiring capability
• Lead and develop a TA & HR team of 3 FTE
• Partner closely with founders to transition from founder-led to structured, manager-led hiring

This is a high-impact role. You are not just closing roles - you are building the talent engine that powers the company's next stage of growth.

Talent Acquisition (~80%):

• Sourcing and pipeline: building and running sourcing strategy for open roles, keeping pipelines full enough that hiring managers are never waiting on you
• Co-founder and hiring manager partnership: sharpening JDs, running intake calls, and holding HMs accountable for fast, clear feedback on candidates
• Candidate experience: running a screening and interview process that moves fast and treats candidates well, from first outreach to offer
• Agency and vendor coordination: managing external recruiting agencies where they are used (e.g., US hiring), keeping them accountable to quality and turnaround
• Reporting and process: tracking pipeline health, time-to-fill, and source effectiveness; flagging bottlenecks before they become escalations
• Onboarding handoff: working with the Ops/Admin teammate so new hires land well, not just get a laptop and a Slack invite

HR mentoring and support (~20%):

• Mentoring the HR team: being a sounding board for the HR team on judgment calls, escalations, and how to handle things they have not seen before
• Helping figure out and guide HR, not run it day to day: working alongside the HR team on performance frameworks, policy, and process design, without owning execution of any of it
• Connecting TA and HR: making sure what you are seeing in the market and in hiring (comp benchmarks, candidate expectations, attrition signals) actually informs how HR builds its frameworks

What this role is:

• A doers' seat: you are sourcing, screening, and closing candidates yourself, not just managing a dashboard.
• Coach and Manage: Manage the other TA and HR team members and their outcomes.
• Built for range: in a given week you might be closing a candidate, sitting in on a policy discussion, and coaching someone on how to handle a tricky HR conversation
• A growth track: as the team and function scale, this role is a natural path towards TA/HR leader