Talent Engineer

ABOUT US Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants, investments, and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects, and the foundation itself, operate like high-velocity startups, with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming at astera.org/vision http://astera.org/vision. ABOUT THE ROLE Astera is modernizing its talent and people operations with a deeply human-first approach, leveraging AI agents to handle administrative overhead and repetitive tasks. We're seeking an AI-fluent Talent Engineer to design and operate these intelligent workflows—freeing our hiring managers and teams to focus on what matters most: conducting meaningful assessments and building authentic relationships with every candidate. This is not a traditional recruiting role. Where sourcing and coordination work used to mean manually doing outreach, scheduling interviews, updating trackers, and drafting candidate emails one at a time, this role means designing the systems — often agent- or LLM-powered — that handle that work at scale, and knowing when and how to intervene when they don't. You'll be equally comfortable in Ashby/Rippling, in a prompt or automation config, and in a conversation coaching a hiring manager about what "good" looks like for a given search. Recruiting at Astera is highly relational and idiosyncratic, shaped by our rapid growth and the wide range of specialized roles we consistently look to fill. As the organization scales, this role offers a unique opportunity to create tangible impact by building the systems that allow us to move quickly without sacrificing quality. This complexity is precisely why agentic tooling is so valuable here; the goal is not to automate away judgment, but to remove repetitive overhead so that every candidate receives a thoughtful, world-class experience at scale. Reporting initially to the COO, you will work closely with Astera's leadership to define, build, and continuously improve the agentic talent and people infrastructure — while making sure it never comes at the expense of candidate experience or hiring quality. This role is ideal for someone who is genuinely energized by building with AI tools, thrives in a dynamic and ambiguous environment, and wants their engineering instincts applied to people problems rather than product problems. RESPONSIBILITIES AGENTIC WORKFLOW DESIGN & OWNERSHIP - Design, build, and maintain AI agent and automation workflows that handle scheduling, candidate communication, pipeline tracking, and reporting across the hiring lifecycle. - Own the toolchain end-to-end: configure and extend the ATS (Ashby/Rippling), connect it to LLM-based agents and automations, and integrate with calendars, email, and internal systems. - Continuously evaluate new AI tools and techniques (agent frameworks, prompt/workflow design, LLM-based sourcing and screening aids) and pilot them against real hiring needs. - Build guardrails, review checkpoints, and escalation paths so agentic systems fail safely and a human is always in the loop where judgment or empathy is required. CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE & COORDINATION - Monitor the end-to-end interview process for both candidates and internal stakeholders, stepping in personally wherever automation isn't the right tool for the moment - including when facilitating onsite interviews. - Ensure agent-driven scheduling and communication reflect Astera's tone and values at every touchpoint, not just its speed. - Prepare interviewers with relevant materials, context, and rubrics, sourced and assembled with the help of your own tooling. PIPELINE INTELLIGENCE & REPORTING - Maintain accurate, agent-assisted candidate records and pipeline data in Ashby/Rippling. - Build living dashboards and automated reporting on pipeline health, bottlenecks, and operational risk for the COO and hiring managers. - Turn one-off processes into reusable, documented, AI-assisted templates so hiring quality doesn't depend on any one person's bandwidth. SOURCING & RESEARCH - Partner with the COO and hiring managers to identify top-of-funnel sources for unique technical and scientific roles, using AI-assisted research to surface nontraditional candidates. - Build and/or configure agentic sourcing/outreach flows for residents, operators, scientists, and other high-potential candidates, with a clear human review step before anything reaches a candidate. - Support coordination with external recruiters or advisors as needed. OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY - Extend agentic workflow thinking to adjacent People & Operations needs — e.g., onboarding, candidate-day logistics, or communications during peak hiring cycles. - Flex to "unknown unknowns" across the People & Operations stack, and step in to support the office manager, people operations lead, or other teammates during high-volume periods. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS - 3-6+ years of experience in recruiting or people operations — ideally with hands-on experience building or configuring automations, agents, or AI-assisted workflows. - Deep experience with ATS systems (e.g., Lever, Greenhouse, Ashby, Rippling) and their APIs or automation surfaces. - Demonstrated comfort with AI tools beyond chat: prompt design, agent frameworks, no-code/low-code automation platforms (e.g., Zapier, Make, n8n), or scripting against APIs. - Ability to translate a messy, high-complexity people/recruiting process into a well-designed, reliable system — and to know where automation should stop and a human should step in. - Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with high attention to tone and detail (agentic systems inherit your voice — you have to get it right). - Comfort navigating highly ambiguous environments and adapting to shifting priorities. - Strong project management skills, including tracking work across multiple simultaneous hiring processes and tooling builds. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS We expect that competitive candidates may have additional qualifications that make them especially well suited to this role, potentially including: - Direct experience deploying LLM-based agents or automations in a business or people-ops context (not just personal use). - A technical or engineering background (even informal) that makes system design, integrations, and debugging second nature. - Familiarity with scientific, engineering, or technical recruiting. - Experience working in early-stage or highly cross-functional teams, where you're building the tooling you also use day-to-day. ATTRIBUTES More important than a specific amount of experience is cultural and mindset alignment. Key attributes critical for success include: - Builder's mindset: You'd rather design a system that solves a problem permanently than solve it manually, again and again. - Relationship orientation & communication skills: You assume best intent and develop positive working relationships. You use written and verbal communication as an effective and critical tool — even when an agent is doing the drafting. - Openness to feedback: You value giving and receiving respectful, direct feedback as a cultural multiplier. - Creative, tenacious problem solving: You see options where others see constraints, and you're energized by delighting and surprising stakeholders with thoughtful, well-engineered solutions. - Mission-driven mindset: You're motivated by enabling science that could reshape the future. - Prioritization: You're committed to the deadlines you set and adept at re-prioritizing independently in an environment of constant change. - Start-up mentality: You don't expect to maintain strong boundaries around what "isn't your job," and recognize that this role — and the tools you build for it — will evolve significantly over the next 6–12 months. - High standards & ownership: Your standards for excellence are exceedingly high and internally dictated. You ask, "can we do this 10x better than anyone else?" You take full responsibility for the systems and hiring processes you own, seeking input where needed from hiring managers. - Experimentation & bias to action: You have the courage to launch and iterate on thoughtfully designed experiments — including imperfect first versions of agentic workflows — rather than obsessing over a perfect plan that never ships. LOCATION This role will be in person in Emeryville, California and is expected in the office 5 days a week. Astera Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.