--- title: 'Head of Talent Acquisition at Distyl AI' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-talent-acquisition-distyl-ai-san-francisco-3rmyn3we3f3c' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-14' --- # Head of Talent Acquisition at Distyl AI - **Company:** Distyl AI - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-07-14 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-14 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/distyl/9bd68aed-fc7c-4983-bbf9-ce295690e00f ## Job description ## About Distyl AI Distyl is an applied AI technology company partnering with the world’s most ambitious institutions to rearchitect critical operations for the frontier of AI. Our customers include the largest companies in telecom, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, consumer goods, and global social organizations. We research and deploy technologies that power AI-native operations — both for our partners and for Distyl itself. Our work spans research into self-constructing systems, the development of the most reliable execution of AI systems, and products that transform mission-critical workflows. As a result, Distyl's technologies affect some of the world's largest operations — from hundreds of millions of consumer interactions to tens of millions of supply chain transactions and millions of patient journeys. Distyl is backed by leading investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, DST Global, and the board-members of 20+ F500s. ## What We Are Looking For As Head of Talent Acquisition, you will build and lead the function responsible for bringing AI-native talent to Distyl during a period of rapid growth. Reporting to the Head of People, you will own the strategy, systems, and team that let Distyl scale its headcount without sacrificing hiring quality or speed. This is a hands-on leadership role based in San Francisco, CA. You will lead a team of recruiters, sourcers, and coordinators, and build the process rigor, talent brand, and systems that support the company's next stage of growth. You'll partner closely with hiring managers and executive leadership on headcount planning, and you'll be accountable for the outcomes that matter most: time to fill, quality of hire, and a recruiting engine that keeps pace with the business. You'll also help Distyl figure out what talent needs to look like as AI reshapes entire categories of work, and extend our hiring reach into new markets as the company expands internationally. The ideal candidate combines deep talent acquisition leadership experience, real fluency with AI as both a tool and a hiring signal, and the operational discipline to turn ambiguity into a repeatable system. ## Key Responsibilities - Lead and Grow the Team: Own the performance, development, and growth of a team of recruiters, sourcers, and coordinators. - Build the Talent Attraction Engine: Design and run the sourcing strategy, employer brand, and candidate experience that let Distyl compete for the best AI-native talent in the market. - Ensure Fairness and Equity: Make sure our recruiting process welcomes and encourages people of all backgrounds to join Distyl. - Own the Recruiting Stack: Run our ATS (Ashby) and sourcing tooling, and evaluate and adopt AI-native recruiting tools that give the team a real edge. - Strengthen Interview Rigor: Design structured interview processes and scorecards, and run calibration so interviewer feedback is consistent and predictive. - Own Team Outcomes: Set and report on the metrics that matter time to fill, funnel conversion, quality of hire, etc. and build dashboards leadership can trust. - Partner on Headcount Strategy: Work with the Head of People and business leaders to translate growth plans into hiring capacity, sequencing, and budget. - Personally Run Specialized Searches: Lead or closely oversee senior, executive, and highly specialized searches that need more than the standard full-cycle motion. - Lead International & New-Market Hiring: Build the playbook for hiring in new geographies as Distyl expands internationally: sourcing strategy, market-specific practices, and compliant hiring from day one. - Scope Roles That Don't Exist Yet: Partner with leadership to define brand-new roles and competencies as AI reshapes the market, staying ahead of how the industry is naming and leveling emerging work. - Scale Repeatable Systems: Build hiring playbooks by function so growth doesn't mean reinventing the process every time headcount increases. - Develop the Team's Craft: Build training on process, tools, and evaluation standards for the recruiting org. ## Who You Are - A Builder: You've built talent functions before, not just run ones someone else designed, and you're excited to define what "good" looks like here. - Proven at High-Growth Scale: 8+ years building talent programs and leading recruiting teams, ideally at companies that grew fast enough to outgrow their own process at least once. - AI-Fluent: You use AI tools in your own workflow and can translate that fluency into how a talent program sources, evaluates, and attracts AI-native candidates. - Hands-On With the Stack: You've owned an ATS and evaluated new sourcing and AI tools yourself, not just read reports about them. - Comfortable With Senior Searches: You've personally led executive or highly specialized hiring, in addition to high-volume standard roles. - Experienced Across Borders: You've hired in multiple countries and helped a company open new markets, and you understand how hiring practices, comp, and compliance shift by geography. - A Pulse on What's Emerging: You track how new roles and titles are forming across the AI industry, and can turn a fuzzy, not-yet-defined need into a real job description and leveling framework. - A Genuine Coach: You know how to bring a growing team up to speed quickly, with patience alongside pace, and you invest in people's development as much as their output. ## What We Offer - The base salary range for this role is $180,000–$220,000, depending on experience and level. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for meaningful equity. - 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents - Flexible time off - Retirement and financial planning benefits, including access to pre-tax HSA, FSA, and commuter accounts, 401(k), and financial coaching resources - Comprehensive wellness benefits, including physical fitness, mental well-being, and fertility and family-building benefits through Carrot - Complimentary in-office lunches and snacks provided - Access to state-of-the-art AI models, generous usage of modern AI tools, and real-world business problems - Ownership of high-impact projects across top enterprises - A mission-driven, fast-moving culture that values curiosity, pragmatism, and excellence Distyl has offices in San Francisco and New York. This role follows a hybrid collaboration model with 3+ days per week (Tuesday–Thursday) in the San Francisco office. We believe diverse perspectives make our work stronger and more impactful. We are an equal opportunity employer and evaluate all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply. ## About Distyl AI ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Distyl AI partners with world-class institutions to rearchitect their operational systems for abundant intelligence, deploying AI-native workflows at production scale. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series B) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Arjun Prakash (Co-Founder, CEO) and Derek Ho (Co-Founder, COO) ## Core Business - **Primary Industry**: AI-Native Operations / Enterprise AI - **Target Customers**: Large enterprises and institutions in regulated industries (Fortune 500 companies), specifically financial services, healthcare, telecom, insurance, manufacturing, and retail. - **Mission/Purpose**: To help world institutions rearchitect their systems for abundant intelligence without sacrificing human agency and control. ## Products & Services - **Distillery (Proprietary Platform)**: An agentic infrastructure platform that curates context from across the enterprise, enabling composable routines, policy-aware execution, and built-in auditability. It integrates with existing enterprise systems to allow for autonomous workflows. - **Distyl Scans**: A service offering that provides enterprises with an “AI Readiness” score and a roadmap for adopting AI-driven technologies by surveying KPIs, business processes, data landscape, and tech stack. - **AI-Native Workflows**: Custom, full-stack solutions deployed for specific industries, including intelligent underwriting, claims processing, prior authorization automation, and contact center intelligence. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed. - **Key Metrics**: - **Total Funding**: $202 million (across 3 rounds: Seed, Series A, Series B). - **Annual Revenue**: $1.0 million (per LinkedIn). - **Decisions Processed**: Over 1 billion decisions processed annually at production scale. - **Deployments**: 50+ enterprise deployments across Fortune 500 companies. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Lightspeed Venture Partners (led Series A & B), Khosla Ventures, DST Global, Coatue, Dell Technologies Capital, OpenAI, Microsoft. - **Growth Signals**: - **Massive Headcount Growth**: 117 employees (+101.3% YoY, +77 people) as of recent data. - **Latest Funding**: Raised a $175 million Series B in October 2025. - **Industry Reach**: Active production deployments across 12 industries. - **Talent Pipeline**: Strong hiring from top-tier companies like Palantir, McKinsey, Amazon, and Microsoft. ## Competitive Advantages - **Outcome Ownership**: Unlike a pure software vendor or consultancy, Distyl takes "Relentless Outcome Ownership," deploying solutions and managing them in production to ensure EBITDA impact within 6 months. - **Full-Stack AI**: They combine strategy, research, and engineering to build and deploy production-grade systems, not just demos or proofs-of-concept. - **Built for Regulated Industries**: Their platform is designed with dynamic guardrails and auditability, making them a trusted partner for sectors like healthcare and finance where compliance is non-negotiable. - **Strong Backing**: Backed by a consortium of top-tier venture capital firms and strategic investors like OpenAI and Microsoft, providing deep resources and credibility. ## Strategic Focus - **Defining the AI-Native Enterprise**: Distyl is focused on building the systems, workflows, and operational models that will define how large enterprises operate in the age of AI. - **Agentic Systems at Scale**: Their current priority is deploying agentic systems that are practical, auditable, and safe, moving beyond simple automation to complex decision-making. - **Industry Expansion**: With deployments in 12 industries, they are aggressively expanding their footprint in financial services, healthcare, and telecom, while also targeting supply chain and insurance. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & Work Style**: Described as fast-paced and outcome-oriented. The company values "relentless curiosity," direct feedback ("no ego-stroking"), and a bias for shipping real solutions. The work is described as defining the future of enterprise AI. - **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: For all engineering roles and most other roles, the company requires in-office collaboration **3 days a week** in either San Francisco or New York City. They also have a London office. - **Benefits & Perks**: - **Health & Wellness**: 100% coverage for medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents. 8 weeks of parental leave. Flexible PTO. - **Compensation**: Competitive salary and meaningful equity. Retirement plans. Life and disability insurance. - **Additional**: Relocation support for moves over 100 miles. Daily meals and snacks in-office. Commuter benefits. - **Engineering & Research Focus**: The interview process is practical, featuring collaborative live coding and system design discussions, and the use of AI is encouraged during interviews. They hire people who "make AI work better than anyone else." ## Sources 1. [distyl.ai](https://www.distyl.ai/) 2. [distyl.ai - About](https://www.distyl.ai/about) 3. [distyl.ai - Careers](https://www.distyl.ai/careers) 4. [LinkedIn - Distyl AI](https://www.linkedin.com/company/distylai) 5. [CB Insights - Distyl](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/distyl-ai) ## Other roles at Distyl AI - [Recruiting Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/recruiting-coordinator-distyl-ai-new-york-8q61z2gn6mvv) — New York, NY - [Executive Operations Associate, Office of the CEO](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-operations-associate-office-of-the-ceo-distyl-ai-san-francisco-hj2xp93s2pef) — San Francisco, CA - [Lead AI Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-ai-strategist-distyl-ai-san-francisco-q52mgmpz2qz7) — San Francisco, CA - [Research Engineers, Post-Training](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineers-post-training-distyl-ai-san-francisco-zgw63z6bgdh3) — San Francisco, CA - [Research Engineers, Agents](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineers-agents-distyl-ai-san-francisco-s11fsefd83k9) — San Francisco, CA - [Research Engineers, Data](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineers-data-distyl-ai-san-francisco-9cdmck9tqjda) — San Francisco, CA - [AI Engineer, Enterprise Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-enterprise-lead-distyl-ai-san-francisco-bfgwqzjz2bvq) — San Francisco, CA - [AI Engineer, Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-lead-distyl-ai-san-francisco-wy97wtfzpd2n) — San Francisco, CA - [AI Engineer, Evaluation](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-evaluation-distyl-ai-san-francisco-8zm2rngncgmx) — San Francisco, CA - [AI Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-distyl-ai-san-francisco-e7kcw7bt96ty) — San Francisco, CA