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Head of Talent

Monarch

Emeryville, CAFull-timePosted 1mo agoStill listed 6 days ago

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At a glance

Compensation
No compensation found
Location
Emeryville, CA
Schedule
Full-time
Work Authorization
Not specified

Olive lists jobs from US employers, including remote roles you can work from the United States.

Job overview

Monarch seeks a founding Head of Talent to own end-to-end recruiting across scientific and engineering roles, build the hiring function from scratch, and develop talent strategies for a mission-driven organization.

Skills & qualifications

RequiredNice to have

Skills

Full-Cycle RecruitingTalent MappingCandidate SourcingInterview DesignOffer DesignRecruiting InfrastructureApplicant TrackingPipeline ReportingEmployer BrandingLevelingCompensation DesignOnboardingRelationship BuildingDiscretionInsect Behavior KnowledgeChemistry KnowledgeMachine Learning KnowledgeVector Control Knowledge

Qualifications

Ten or More Years in TalentLeadership of Recruiting FunctionBuilt Recruiting Function From ScratchHired Senior Scientists and EngineersBuilt Relationships With Hard‑to‑Reach CandidatesSubstantive Conversation About Science DomainsOperate With Discipline and DiscretionExperience Spanning Recruiting and People OperationsTime in Mission‑Driven OrganizationsAdvising Founders on Talent StrategyDeep Interest in Vector Control and Crop Protection Science

Full job description

We offer opportunities to do your life’s work while helping solve one of the most important technical and moral challenges of our time. Full-time, in-office in Emeryville, California. Be our founding Head of Talent. Own every open search end to end, from scoping to close, and build the hiring function the company grows on without lowering the bar. Key Responsibilities

  • Own full-cycle recruiting for every open role, across formulation and computational chemistry, behavioral assay science, machine learning and computer vision, lab network operations, and global health and regulatory: scoping, sourcing, interviewing, offer design and close.

  • Turn ambiguous mandates from the founder and technical leads into crisp role definitions, calibrated bars and structured interview loops, with scorecards, debriefs and calibration you run yourself.

  • Build top of funnel from scratch: talent maps and warm pipelines across entomology, chemistry, machine learning and vector-control research, and the labs, companies and funders where that talent works.

  • Run the searches that never move through a standard process: senior researchers and operators who are not looking, where timing, discretion, market intelligence and a tailored approach matter more than process.

  • Close exceptional people who have other excellent options, on substance and relationship rather than pressure, by being fluent in the work and honest about the trade-offs.

  • Stand up the recruiting infrastructure the company needs: applicant tracking, pipeline reporting, employer presence and a candidate experience that reflects the seriousness of the work.

  • Own the people foundations that come with hiring: leveling, offer frameworks and a consistent bar across science, engineering and operations. Hire and lead recruiters if and when the team needs them.

Qualifications

  • Ten or more years in talent, including leading recruiting as a head of recruiting, director or founding recruiter at a research organization, frontier technology company or another environment with a famously high bar.

  • Took an organization through rapid early scaling: joined when the team was small, built the recruiting function and its processes from scratch, and are energized rather than unsettled by doing it again.

  • Personally hired senior scientists, engineers and operators, closing against offers from the best companies in the world.

  • Track record of building relationships with hard-to-reach candidates who are not actively looking or who need a highly personalized process.

  • Can hold your own in a substantive conversation about insect behavior, chemistry, machine learning and malaria vector control, enough to earn the trust of researchers and engineers.

  • Operate with discipline, discretion and care without needing a large team around you.

Desired Attributes

  • Experience spanning recruiting and people operations, including leveling, compensation design and onboarding, so the hiring system and the employee experience grow together.

  • Time in mission-driven organizations, and a record of hiring for first-of-their-kind roles.

  • Experience advising founders on talent strategy, org design and compensation.

  • Deep interest in the science, and in the people and institutions shaping vector control and crop protection.

To learn more, visit monarchlabs.org

How this job compares

Set against the 2,757 open Talent Acquisition jobs on Olive Jobs, counted October 28, 2026.

Pay
  • This postingNot listed
  • California median$132–185K/yr368 salary ranges
  • California median$45–55/hr62 hourly ranges
Openings
Olive Jobs lists 536 open Talent Acquisition jobs in California and 2,757 across the US. 8% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
Hiring the most in California
Experience
This posting asks for at least 10 years of experience — more than three in four Talent Acquisition postings that state a minimum ask for (median 4 years, across 2,159 postings).
Education
424 of the 2,757 open Talent Acquisition jobs (15%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.

Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on October 28, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.

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