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Senior Design Recruiter — US Remote (Contract)

25–35 hours a week, 1099 contract to start, running searches for our US-based clients from your own timezone. Reports to Ikashish Sheehani, founder.

We do not need a Boolean-search machine. We need someone who can watch a candidate walk a hiring manager through a version history and know when the version history is honest and when it is edited. — What we're actually looking for

The mandate

Since March 2026 we have taken on three US product companies as retained clients, and two more are in scoping. That is more concurrent US work than we can run responsibly from Jaipur — the time-zone tax on candidate calls and hiring-manager debriefs is real, and the delta between "I have read the portfolio" and "I have understood the portfolio" grows in the hours between 2 and 6 AM local.

So we are opening one US-based senior recruiter role, contract-to-hire. You will own the front half of every US search: intake with the hiring team, sourcing (heavy — we do not accept inbound-only), portfolio review to our house standard, and the first video conversation with candidates before we bring them into our shared shortlist.

What you would actually do in a week

Sit in on two to three client scoping calls (US timezone, Zoom, we join from Jaipur when useful)
Source 15–25 portfolios per active search, read each one at least twice
Write a two-paragraph reasoning note per shortlist candidate — no template, no bullet dump
Take the first 25-minute portfolio walkthrough with each finalist, live-share screen, ask for the file that did not make it
Debrief with the Jaipur team weekly — what we learned this week that we did not know last week
Own compensation benchmarking and offer construction for US placements

We want to see (and will ask about)

Six-plus years in design, creative or product recruiting — in-house or agency, we do not have a preference
You have personally placed at least twenty designers you can still name
A view on why case studies over-index for narrative craft and under-index for problem-selection judgement
Comfort defending a shortlist call to a hiring manager who outranks you and disagrees, without hedging
US-based, US work authorization for 1099 contract, quiet room, good camera, good microphone

The first thirty days

Week one you shadow. Three live sourcing sessions with our Jaipur leads, two portfolio-review sessions with the founder on Zoom, one long reading list on our house style — what we mean by "the messy middle" and how we write reasoning notes to clients. Week two you take one active US search over the wall. Week three you run intake for a fresh search independently. Week four you have a caseload of two searches and we know from the client feedback whether this fit is real.

Rates and mechanics

Rate range is $85–115 per hour as a 1099 contract, 25–35 hours a week. Invoicing is fortnightly, paid within seven days, no games. If the fit works we will convert to a full-time US Head of Recruiting position in Q2 2027, base $175–210K plus a share of placement fees on searches you originate.