Senior Recruiter, Hardware at Rippling Recruiting, San Francisco, CA

Senior Recruiter, Hardware at Rippling Recruiting in San Francisco, CA. $140,000 to $225,000 a year. Apply with swipeandhired.

Positron builds purpose-built hardware and software for efficient AI inference. We are looking for a Senior Hardware Technical Recruiter to help build the engineering teams behind our next generation of silicon and systems.

In this role, you will partner directly with engineering leaders and own recruiting from initial role definition through accepted offer. You will bring a strong understanding of semiconductor talent, creative sourcing skills, and a track record of helping experienced engineers take the next step in their careers.
Key Responsibilities
Full-Cycle Hardware Recruiting

• Own full-cycle recruiting for hardware engineering roles, including ASIC architecture and RTL design, design verification, physical design, design-for-test, emulation, and silicon validation.
• Partner with engineering leaders to define hiring priorities, candidate profiles, seniority, and interview criteria.

Sourcing and Candidate Engagement

• Build pipelines of passive candidates through market mapping, personalized outreach, referrals, and relationships within semiconductor communities.
• Conduct initial conversations that establish relevant experience, career motivations, and alignment with the role.

Interview Process and Closing

• Coordinate effective interview processes, facilitate candidate debriefs, and keep feedback and decisions moving.
• Develop offer and closing strategies with hiring managers and the People team, communicating the technical opportunity and helping candidates make informed decisions.

Recruiting Operations and Continuous Improvement

• Use pipeline data and market feedback to identify bottlenecks, improve recruiting effectiveness, and provide realistic hiring forecasts.
• Deliver a thoughtful candidate experience and improve recruiting tools, workflows, and practices as Positron grows.
• Take an agent-first approach to recruiting: put AI agents in charge of the process work, such as research, outreach preparation, scheduling, and reporting, so your time goes to people: building relationships with candidates, advising hiring managers, and closing great hires.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of full-cycle technical recruiting experience, including substantial experience recruiting semiconductor or silicon engineering talent.
• Demonstrated success hiring across multiple hardware disciplines, such as ASIC/RTL design, design verification, physical design, DFT, or silicon validation.
• A proven track record of independently sourcing and closing experienced engineers in competitive talent markets.
• Working knowledge of the semiconductor development lifecycle and the distinctions among engineering specialties, sufficient to calibrate searches with hiring managers.
• Confidence advising engineering leaders, challenging assumptions constructively, and translating broad hiring needs into actionable search strategies.
• Strong written communication, relationship-building, organization, and prioritization skills.
• Hands-on proficiency with applicant tracking systems, sourcing tools, and recruiting metrics.
• Experience using LLMs and agentic AI tools in your own recruiting workflows, such as market research, sourcing, outreach drafting, scheduling, or pipeline reporting, with sound judgment about where human review is essential.
• Ability to independently manage multiple specialized searches as priorities evolve.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience recruiting for AI accelerators, GPUs, CPUs, advanced computing systems, or related semiconductor companies.
• An established network within silicon and hardware engineering communities.
• Prior success hiring staff, principal, architect, or engineering leadership talent.
• Background recruiting in a rapidly growing startup, including building or improving recruiting processes.
• Exposure to adjacent disciplines such as board-level hardware, firmware, packaging, signal integrity, or systems engineering.
• Familiarity with AI tools and automation to improve recruiting research, outreach preparation, reporting, or operations.
• Experience supporting searches across multiple locations or countries.

Leveling & Scope
While this role is currently posted at a specific level, we are a growth-oriented organization and are open to hiring at a more senior level for the right candidate. Please note that this job description serves as a focused but generalized overview of the role; specific responsibilities and impact expectations will be tailored to the experience and seniority of the final hire.
Why Join Us?

• Build the team behind the silicon: you will directly shape the architecture, verification, physical design, and validation teams delivering Positron's next generations of AI inference accelerators.
• Real ownership and impact: partner closely with engineering leadership at a fast-growing startup, where your recruiting strategy, market insight, and process improvements will define how Positron hires.

Compensation & Benefits
The base salary range for this role is $140,000 – $225,000.

Please note that the figures provided represent the base salary range only and do not include other elements of our total compensation package, equity, or comprehensive benefits.

At Positron AI, we value the unique expertise each candidate brings. While the range above reflects our typical expectation for the position, we reserve the flexibility to exceed this range for candidates whose specialized skills, significant experience, or unique qualifications fall outside the standard scope of the role. Final offers are determined based on a variety of factors, including internal equity, and individual impact.
Benefits & Perks
We want you to do your best work and feel confident that you and your family are taken care of. That means comprehensive coverage, real time to rest, and support for your future.
Health and wellness

• Fully company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents
• Company-paid life and disability coverage, with voluntary options to add more
• Supplemental hospital, critical illness, and accident coverage available

Time off and flexibility

• Unlimited paid time off; we encourage everyone to truly unplug and recharge
• 13 paid company holidays
• Remote-first culture with a company-provided computer and home office setup

Compensation and future

• Competitive salary and equity
• 401(k) with company matching, eligible from day one

Visa Support
This position is open to candidates currently authorized to work in the U.S. We cannot provide new visa sponsorship for this role but are open to facilitating H-1B visa transfers for eligible candidates.

Equal Opportunity Employer. If you're excited about the role but don't meet every bullet, we'd still love to hear from you.

About Positron AI
Positron AI is building next-generation AI inference accelerators designed from the ground up for low-latency, high-throughput large language model inference. Our first-generation ASIC, Asimov, is a cutting-edge accelerator targeting frontier AI workloads, with additional generations already underway.