Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist

Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist

Untapped is recruiting a Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist on behalf of a client.

Our client is a founder-led, research-driven technical search firm in its third year that places senior infrastructure, SRE, platform, and core systems engineers with top-tier hedge funds, quant trading firms, and high-growth technology businesses across the US East Coast. Backed by intense client demand, the founder is seeking their very first hire to take charge of market mapping, headhunting, and candidate engagement. If you are a naturally inquisitive researcher who relishes the detective work of unearthing world-class engineering talent, this fully remote, permanent role based in South Africa offers the opportunity to partner directly with the founder and help shape how the business expands.

Key Responsibilities

• Map engineering teams at targeted firms using LinkedIn, company websites, conference programmes, and industry publications to understand how their technical talent aligns with client requirements.
• Design and execute tailored, multi-channel outreach campaigns across LinkedIn, email, and sequencing tools to engage passive candidates.
• Lead detailed screening conversations with engineers to learn about their team structures, discover top performers, and assess their motivations.
• Qualify high-calibre candidates and schedule them for introductory discussions with the founder, gradually progressing towards conducting first-round interviews independently.
• Construct and maintain proactive talent pipelines aligned with recurring, high-demand technical specialisms.
• Explore and integrate modern recruitment workflows, including sourcing automation and AI research tools, to enhance productivity.

Required Skills & Experience

• Demonstrable background in talent sourcing, headhunting, or research, gained within executive search or contingent recruitment environments.
• Outstanding investigative instinct, with a proven ability to dig beneath the surface and run sophisticated market mapping and Boolean searches.
• Highly articulate communication skills, with the confidence to conduct in-depth phone screens and engage technical professionals credibly.
• Self-motivated and results-oriented mindset, capable of working autonomously and driving searches without daily supervision.
• Location in South Africa, working full-time on a remote basis, with the flexibility to occasionally attend evening calls to connect with US East Coast candidates (no visa sponsorship provided).

Nice-to-have

• Prior experience recruiting within the technology sector, specifically across systems engineering, platform engineering, site reliability engineering (SRE), infrastructure, or quantitative technology.
• Practical familiarity with sourcing platforms and automation tools such as Clay, SourceWhale, or GitHub.
• Experience applying generative AI or AI research tools to streamline sourcing, prompt engineering, and market intelligence gathering.

Why Join

As the search firm’s first employee, your research directly determines the company's delivery capability and client success. Working alongside the founder, your insights will actively direct search strategy rather than simply filling requisitions from a queue. The role offers true independence in a remote South African setting, operating on UK-aligned core working hours where output and results are valued over desk time. You will tackle sophisticated technical mandates in the quant trading and elite tech sectors, mastering deep-dive headhunting methodologies and modern recruitment tools at the highest level of search.