Talent Acquisition Sourcer

About the Role
We’re looking for an experienced Talent Acquisition Sourcer to help identify and engage exceptional talent across Tailscale as we continue to scale globally.

This is a senior individual contributor role for someone with deep sourcing expertise, technical fluency, and strong talent market knowledge. You’ll partner with Talent Acquisition Partners, hiring managers, and TA leadership to develop and execute sourcing strategies across Engineering, Product, Design, GTM, G&A, executive, confidential, and other business-critical searches.

We’re looking for someone who can quickly understand complex and ambiguous hiring needs, translate them into sophisticated search strategies, and find talent others may overlook. Beyond individual searches, you’ll help strengthen sourcing across Talent Acquisition through market intelligence, talent mapping, inclusive sourcing, knowledge sharing, and experimentation with new approaches.

Key Responsibilities
Build & Execute Sourcing Strategies
Lead sourcing strategies for complex, high-priority, and difficult-to-fill searches across technical, GTM, G&A, leadership, and other specialized functions.
Translate business needs, role requirements, and talent market dynamics into targeted search strategies and actionable sourcing plans.
Identify and engage exceptional passive talent through advanced research, diverse sourcing channels, networks, communities, and creative approaches.
Independently manage multiple searches and adjust strategies based on pipeline performance, candidate feedback, market conditions, and evolving priorities.

Source Highly Technical & Specialized Talent
Develop deep knowledge of Tailscale’s product, technology, business, and technical culture to identify candidates who can thrive here.
Partner with Talent Acquisition Partners and hiring teams to translate highly technical or nuanced profiles into effective talent searches.
Research adjacent companies, technologies, open-source ecosystems, communities, and talent pools to uncover candidates beyond traditional sources.
Build credibility with technical and specialized talent by understanding their backgrounds, motivations, and the work they care about.

Use Data & Market Intelligence
Bring expertise and comfort with sourcing data and market insights to assess pipeline health, identify hiring risks, and improve sourcing strategies.
Conduct talent mapping and market research to provide actionable insights on talent availability, competitive landscapes, geographies, and hiring challenges.
Surface market constraints and opportunities early and recommend adjustments to profiles, locations, or sourcing approaches.
Translate market intelligence into actionable recommendations for Talent Acquisition Partners, leadership, and hiring teams.

Champion Inclusive Sourcing
Build inclusive sourcing strategies that identify exceptional talent across a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, communities, and career paths.
Challenge unnecessarily narrow search criteria and recommend approaches that broaden qualified talent pools.
Identify new communities, networks, and sourcing channels that expand access to talent.
Use research and pipeline data to identify opportunities to improve sourcing approaches and candidate representation.

Engage & Cultivate Exceptional Talent
Create compelling, personalized outreach for highly sought-after candidates and complex talent markets.
Build authentic relationships with passive talent and cultivate pipelines that support current and future hiring needs.
Assess candidate interest, motivation, experience, and alignment before transitioning candidates into the broader recruiting process.
Partner with Talent Acquisition Partners to ensure seamless handoffs and an exceptional candidate experience.

Elevate Sourcing Across Talent Acquisition
Collaborate across Talent Acquisition on complex searches, sourcing strategy, candidate calibration, and evolving hiring priorities.
Facilitate sourcing jams and share advanced sourcing techniques, market intelligence, search strategies, and talent insights across the team.
Build reusable talent maps, research resources, and sourcing frameworks for recurring or strategic hiring needs.
Partner with Talent Acquisition Operations and leadership to improve sourcing tools, workflows, analytics, automation, and AI-enabled practices.

What We Are Looking For
6+ years of talent sourcing and/or recruiting experience, with significant experience sourcing highly competitive talent in high-growth or highly technical environments.
Demonstrated success sourcing across multiple functions, with deep experience identifying highly technical Engineering and Product talent and supporting complex, leadership, or specialized searches.
Advanced expertise in sourcing techniques, talent research, market mapping, competitive intelligence, and building pipelines beyond traditional candidate pools.
Ability to quickly understand complex or ambiguous roles and independently translate them into sophisticated sourcing strategies.
Strong analytical and communication skills, with the ability to use sourcing data and market intelligence to influence search strategies and engage highly sought-after talent.
Proven ability to partner with Talent Acquisition Partners, hiring managers, and senior leaders, using strong judgment to challenge assumptions and recommend changes when appropriate.
Ability to independently manage multiple priorities while collaborating across Talent Acquisition and elevating sourcing practices through knowledge sharing, tools, AI, and emerging approaches.

Nice to Have
Deep experience sourcing infrastructure, networking, security, developer tools, distributed systems, cloud, or similarly technical engineering talent.
Experience finding technical talent through open-source ecosystems, GitHub, technical communities, research, and other channels beyond traditional recruiting platforms.
Experience supporting executive or confidential searches and sourcing globally across North America, EMEA, and/or APAC.
Experience building talent maps or market intelligence that materially influenced hiring strategy or helped leaders broaden how they define exceptional talent.
Experience facilitating sourcing jams, sharing advanced sourcing practices, or otherwise raising sourcing capability across a Talent Acquisition team.
A reputation for finding exceptional people others struggle to find—and understanding how to engage them effectively.