Founding Recruiter & HR

Were hiring our first Recruiter & HR at Sidecar.

$12 trillion in goods move by freight every year, coordinated by people copy-pasting between email and spreadsheets. Were building the AI that changes that.

About Sidecar

• Sidecar is an AI workplace software for freight forwarding. Our AI agent sits on a forwarders inbox, reads every quote request, extracts shipping details from emails and PDFs, drafts professional responses, and triggers workflows across carriers and ERPs — all in seconds. What used to take a sales rep 30+ minutes per email now takes under a minute with human review.
• We believe the smartest logistics companies of 2030 will be run by 10 people with AI, not 100 people with spreadsheets. Were building the software that makes that possible.

The Role

• Youll be our first people hire. Today, hiring runs on Clay searches, Juicebox queries, Slack threads between the founders, and Claude-assisted pipeline tracking. It works, but it doesnt scale.
• Youll own recruiting end-to-end and eventually build out people operations as we grow from 10 to 50+.

What youll do

• Own the full hiring pipeline: sourcing, screening, scheduling, offers, closing.
• 
  Identify unconventional talent sources beyond traditional job boards (Open-source communities, niche forums, university placement records)
• Build and maintain AI workflows that automate sourcing, outreach, candidate tracking, and pipeline reporting - we dont do things manually when a tool can do it better
• Set up our ATS, scorecards, and hiring workflows so nothing falls through the cracks and every candidate gets a fast, transparent experience
• Own onboarding - make sure every new hires first week is structured, welcoming, and sets them up to contribute fast
• Assist in building employer branding - careers page, LinkedIn presence, outbound messaging, job posts that actually attract talent

What were looking for

• 1 –2 years in talent acquisition at a tech startup
• Youve done tech recruiting and specifically hired engineers, not just filled generic roles. You can tell a backend engineer from an AI engineer and hold a real conversation with either.
• Youre AI-native - not aware of AI, but you actually use Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Replit, v0, or Copilot in your daily work because it makes you work faster.
• Youve been promoted fast or converted from intern to FTE
• 996 (6 days a week), Bangalore-based, in-office

Nice to have

• Worked at a company that builds AI Products.
• Familiarity with ATS systems, recruiting tools, and modern sourcing techniques.

Looking to get Placed? Try our Placement Guarantee Plan

Get Hired
• Experience recruiting for early-stage startups (Series A or earlier).
• Graduate from the 2023–2025 batch (undergraduate or postgraduate) from a Tier 1 college.

Benefits

• Top-bracket salary and high equity compensation (meaningful ESOPs, not symbolic)
• Lunch and dinner at the office + unlimited snacks, coffee, energy drinks
• Annual wellness benefit (gym reimbursement)
• Health Insurance

Selection process

We hire AI-native people with an AI-native process. Two steps:

• Case study: the assignment is available on our career page linked to apply. One page, 600-word hard cap, 72-hour turnaround. Four questions covering your sourcing plan for our first 3 AI engineer hires in Bangalore (with at least 2 unconventional sources), your recruiting stack and AI workflow, a cold outreach sample to a senior AI engineer who already gets 20+ recruiter pings a week, and the #1 risk that could blow up the hiring plan. You can (and should) use Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini etc., we expect it. Weve already run our strongest models on this exact case and locked their answer as our internal reference. Your submission is scored against it. Submit your completed case study along with your details (name, email, phone, LinkedIn) through the form on the Job page. If you beat our AI, you move to interviews.
• Interviews: a couple of rounds with the team on your judgment, your case study, and what youd build here. Offer follows fast when we find the right person.

We are backed by leading Silicon Valley VCs, Angel Investors, and Industry Advisors, and pay top-bracket salaries alongside equity compensation. We are highly selective and believe in only hiring and retaining the best.