Head of Talent

About Build AI

Build AI is the data hyperscaler for Physical AI. We're vertically integrated across hardware, manufacturing, logistics, collection, and model training to scale the physical labor dataset orders of magnitude faster than anyone in the world.

The role

Shenzhen is 10 people today. With you, it will be 30+ by the end of the year, across software, hardware and operations. Every hire you make decides how fast we build hardware, ship software and scale data. In a race this competitive, that speed decides whether we win.

You are the first person every candidate meets. You represent the mission, find the people, judge them and close them.

What you'll do

Run the head hunters. Onboard, brief and push our search firms. Give them feedback fast, double down on the ones that deliver, and drop the ones that don't.

Build the pipeline yourself. Use your own network, referrals and outbound to find people the firms miss.

Be the first interviewer. Screen every candidate for culture and drive. Tell us quickly who is exceptional and who isn't.

Run work trials and close. Move strong candidates into paid work trials, coordinate with the founders and team leads, and close: comp, start date, relocation, family.

Keep the system clean. Every candidate, interview and decision is tracked in Ashby, our hiring system.

Hire first: a software generalist for our vendor platform, mechanical engineers for next-gen hardware, a supply chain manager, then firmware, hardware, ML, logistics, compliance and finance roles.

You might be a fit if

You are fully fluent in Mandarin and English and can be in Shenzhen full time. These are the only hard requirements.

You have a compelling presence: strong people listen to you and follow you.

You are a sharp judge of character. You can tell when someone is bluffing and what actually motivates them.

You have a track record of doing something exceptionally well, early. VC, an early-stage startup, consulting, special projects or recruiting are all good backgrounds.

You know great people, and great people take your calls.

You do not need to be technical or to have worked as a recruiter.

Strong signals

You led or were core to recruiting at a top Chinese hardware or AI company: DJI, Insta360, Xiaomi, Unitree, AgiBot, Even Realities, Manus, DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax.

You hired through hypergrowth: you personally closed 20+ engineers in a year, or helped take a team from about 10 people to 100+.

You've closed people that competitors fought for: senior engineers out of ByteDance, Tencent or Alibaba, or hardware engineers out of DJI or Huawei.

You've hired across software (full-stack, ML) and hardware (mechanical, firmware, electrical).

As a VC or founder, you sourced and closed founders, or built a startup's first 20 hires yourself.

Culture

You believe your life is wasted if you don't change the world in some non-trivial way.

We worked 360 of 365 days last year. You want to go all-in on your life's work.

The harder the problem, the more excited you are.

You want autonomy and full ownership: spot the problem, solve it, own the result.

Low ego, high learning rate, intense determination.

Not a fit if you resist change, carry limiting beliefs or want a comfortable job.

Benefits

Competitive pay

Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage

$500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits

Housing subsidy of $2k per month for those living within walking distance of the office

Relocation support for those moving to San Francisco (Financial District) or Shenzhen (Nanshan)

Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more

Daily lunch and dinner in our office

Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

Unlimited Codex and Claude credits

Travel

How we're different

Build believes in the Bitter Lesson . By taking a general approach of learning from humans, our addressable market is all physical labor.

We are a fully in-person team in San Francisco (Financial District) and Shenzhen (Nanshan), and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both and work across disciplines as needed.

Build AI is an equal opportunity employer. We review every application. If you do not meet every bullet, still apply. Questions: [email protected]