Lead Technical Recruiter

About this role

BUILD A SAFER WORLD.

TRM Labs provides AI-powered intelligence solutions that help public and private sector agencies investigate and disrupt crime. TRM's platforms enable investigators to trace illicit activity, build cases, and construct operating pictures of threat networks. Leading agencies and businesses worldwide rely on TRM to make the world safer and more secure.

Our ability to identify, hire, and retain exceptional talent is foundational to our mission. The Talent team at TRM is made up of seasoned professionals who have experience hiring world-class Engineering, Data Science, GTM, and People teams for the most notable startups in Silicon Valley. As a Lead Technical Recruiter, you are the senior individual-contributor backbone of the team: owning our most complex and highest-stakes technical searches, setting the bar for craft across the function, and mentoring recruiters without needing a direct reporting line to do it. Your success will be measured by the quality and velocity of the searches you personally run, and by how much better the rest of the team gets because you're in the room.

THE IMPACT YOU'LL HAVE HERE

- Own end-to-end delivery on TRM's most complex, ambiguous, or highest-priority technical searches (e.g., executive-adjacent, novel function build-outs, or roles with thin talent markets), often running several ambitious searches in parallel with clear hypotheses, datapoints, and next actions.

- Set the sourcing, evaluation, and closing standard for the function, modeling a bar that would be considered top-tier by industry peers, and stepping in on peers' searches when quality or timelines are at risk.

- Act as a thought partner to hiring managers and executives on hiring strategy, market realities, and calibration, proactively flagging when a plan, level, or approach isn't working and proposing alternatives before being asked.

- Mentor and coach recruiters across the team on sourcing craft, structured search design, and stakeholder management, through pairing, feedback, and modeling rather than formal authority.

- Identify and close gaps in our recruiting systems, tools, and processes (dashboards, funnel hygiene, market maps, playbooks) so the whole team moves faster and with better data.

- Build and share market intelligence, including compensation benchmarks, talent pool maps, and competitor movement, that shapes how TRM plans and prioritizes hiring across functions.

- Create spaces for honest feedback and productive disagreement about what's working in our recruiting motion, and help the team let go of approaches that no longer serve results.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

- 7+ years of technical recruiting experience in high-growth, US-headquartered tech startups, with a track record of independently closing hard-to-fill and senior technical roles.

- Demonstrated ability to run multiple high-complexity searches simultaneously, each with a clear strategy, market read, and measurable outcomes.

- A history of raising the bar for others, through mentorship, pairing, or informal coaching, even without formal management responsibility.

- Sharp first-principles thinker who questions not just execution but the underlying hiring strategy, and is comfortable pushing back on hiring managers or leadership with data and alternatives in hand.

- Fluent in translating messy, cross-functional hiring problems (competing priorities, unclear specs, multiple stakeholders) into a clear plan and next steps.

- Strong operational instincts, comfortable owning improvements to sourcing tools, dashboards, and process design, not just working within them.

- Exceptional, concise communicator who builds trust quickly with executives, hiring managers, and candidates alike.

- A bias toward ownership: thinks like they run the function, not just their own req load.

Learn about TRM Speed in this position:

- Within 72 hours of receiving a position, you schedule the intake meeting, open the position in the ATS, post the description, design the interview process, configure the interview plan.

- Within week of opening a position, you have conducted 5-10 Recruiter Screens and have conducted the first sync with the Hiring Team for calibration.

- Two weeks after the initial interviews, you analyze the data to identify what is and isn’t driving pass rates and conversions. You share your insights and recommendations with the hiring team to refine and optimize the search, and you continue to monitor and adjust the approach until the position is filled.

The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:

- Individual pay is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. The compensation details listed in this posting reflect the US base salary only.

- The estimated base salary range for this role is $172,500 - $196,000.

- Additionally, this role may be eligible to participate in TRM’s equity plan.

- Please note – we factor in the different costs for geographies outside the United States.

LIFE AT TRM

We are building a safer world. That promise shows up in how we work every day.

TRM moves quickly. We are a high velocity, high ownership team that expects clarity, follow-through, and impact. People who thrive here are energized by hard problems, experimentation, and continuous feedback. If something takes months elsewhere, it will ship here in days.

Our work sits at the intersection of AI, national security, and fighting crime. The problems are complex, the stakes are real, and the environment evolves quickly. The pace and intensity of the work reflect the importance of the mission. As a result, the way we operate requires a high level of ownership, adaptability, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.

At TRM, you should expect:

- Priorities and targets to change quickly as we experiment and iterate

- Work that often requires operating with a high degree of ambiguity

- A high level of personal ownership and…