Talent Acquisition Partner

Job Title: Talent Acquisition Partner Team: People Location: Onsite - Sawtelle (Between Santa Monica & West LA) Employment Type: Fulltime, Salaried, Exempt Reports To: VP of HR

About Plug Plug is an automotive fintech startup building the marketplace for electric vehicles. Consumers, dealers, and commercial partners trade in, sell, and auction used EVs through a platform built exclusively for electric, with nothing adapted from legacy automotive. Consumers can get an instant cash offer in minutes, backed by data-driven pricing, battery state-of-health analysis, with pickup, payment, and title transfer handled end-to-end. Franchise and independent dealers across the United States bid in real time on inventory sourced directly from these consumers, dealers, and commercial partners. The result is a single platform that gives sellers a fast, fair exit and gives dealers a dedicated channel for sourcing used EV inventory. Founded in 2023 and led by former Tesla executives, Plug has facilitated $175M in EV sales since launch and is backed by a $20M Series A from Lightspeed Venture Partners. We're building the most AI-native startup team in Los Angeles, full of operators, engineers, and ML researchers laying the transaction rails for the used EV market's exponential growth.

Why Plug

• You'll own a piece of the biggest infrastructure opportunity in automotive.

• You'll work on a platform built exclusively for EVs, with nothing adapted from legacy automotive.

• You'll be part of an AI-native company. We're rethinking how work gets done at a fundamental level.

• You'll work directly with operators who have scaled multi-billion dollar businesses in automotive, EV, and marketplaces.

• You'll have real ownership, high autonomy, and a direct line to company outcomes.

We’re hiring a Recruiter to own full-lifecycle hiring for go-to-market, operations, and early-career technical roles.

Over the last decade most tech companies split recruiting into parts sourcer, coordinator, recruiter, sometimes a separate closer. We built this role the other way. No sourcer. No coordinator. You run the whole search, kickoff through offer accepted, including your own scheduling supported by Ashby automation and AI tooling rather than by handoffs. That’s a real tradeoff. It’s a harder job than a sourcing or coordination seat, and it’s the fastest way to become a complete recruiter. You’ll carry 5 to 8 open requisitions and report to the VP of People. Day to day you’ll work alongside our Senior Recruiter, who owns your craft coaching — search strategy, calibration, and the harder conversations. Senior engineering and ML searches stay with him; you’ll learn those by sitting in, not by being handed them in month one.

What You’ll Own Full-lifecycle recruiting. Intake, sourcing, screening, interview loops, debriefs, and close for your own portfolio. You’ll run your searches; you won’t run them alone. Hiring manager partnership. Run structured kickoffs that align scope, must-haves, sourcing strategy, panel, and timeline before a search opens. Keep panels engaged and accountable with weekly pipeline updates. You’ll learn to advise hiring managers on market realities and leveling — with your manager in the room until you don’t need her there. Proactive sourcing. This is the core skill of the job and where you’ll spend the most time. Direct outreach, referrals, and market mapping, not inbound triage. Build pipelines for recurring roles ahead of need. Interview quality. Run structured loops with clear rubrics and scorecards. Keep debriefs on track and on time. Make sure decisions get made instead of drifting. Offers and close. Manage the close candidate communication, momentum, and start date in partnership with the VP of People, who owns comp construction and negotiation on your searches. Ashby and AI. Keep requisitions, pipelines, and candidate data clean and current. Run self-schedule links and interview plans so coordination doesn’t eat your week. Use AI where it pays market mapping, intake synthesis, screen guides, debrief summaries, first-draft outreach and tell us what’s working. Where AI doesn’t go: screening decisions, candidate ranking, comp conversations, and closing stay human. Those are the job, and we don’t automate selection. Candidate experience. First outreach, scheduling, feedback timing, rejection, offer every touchpoint is Plug’s brand. Find the friction and fix it.

What You Bring

• 2+ years of recruiting experience, with at least one year running searches end-to-end rather than only sourcing or coordinating.
• Evidence you can source: you’ve found and engaged passive candidates through direct outreach, not just worked inbound applicants.
• Hands-on ATS experience. Ashby preferred; Greenhouse or Lever is fine. You keep your own data clean and you can learn a new system fast.
• Working knowledge of Claude (or a comparable AI assistant) as a daily tool, with a specific example of how you use it.
• Comfort doing your own coordination and scheduling without treating it as beneath you.
• Clear, direct written and verbal communication. You can represent Plug credibly to a candidate and give a hiring manager a straight answer.
• Enough self-direction to prioritize 5–8 searches without being told which one matters most this week and enough judgment to ask when you don’t know.
• Currently based in the Los Angeles area and able to work onsite in Sawtelle.

Nice to Have

• Agency recruiting experience, or any background with high-volume direct outreach.
• Exposure to technical recruiting engineering, data, or ML.
• Marketplace, consumer, or two-sided platform experience.
• Experience in a small or scaling TA function rather than a large, highly specialized org.

Your First 90 Days

• 30 days: Fully ramped in Ashby, kickoffs completed on your open reqs, actively sourcing on all of them, first candidates in process.
• 60 days: First offer extended and accepted. Pipeline health visible to every hiring manager you support.
• 90 days: Running your portfolio with light oversight, hitting response-rate and time-to-slate targets, and bringing us at least one thing we should change about how we hire. We’ll review three numbers together, monthly: intake to first slate, scheduling touches per candidate, and outreach reply rate.

Compensation & Benefits

Annual Salary: $88,000 - $111,000

• Equity and bonus eligible

• Health, Vision, and Dental insurance

• 401(k) plan

• Daily lunch stipend

• Unlimited PTO

• 30-day remote work from anywhere program

• Fully stocked kitchen

• Dog-friendly office

• Ongoing opportunities for growth and development

This is an in-person role based in Sawtelle, between Santa Monica and West Los Angeles. We are hiring locally only candidates must already be based in the Los Angeles area. Relocation assistance is not provided, and sponsorship is not available at this time.

Equal Opportunity Plug is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We believe diverse teams build better products.