--- title: 'Senior Recruiter at Watney' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-recruiter-watney-san-francisco-16w939mnbr4j' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-12' --- # Senior Recruiter at Watney - **Company:** Watney - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-07-27 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/watney/3ffbc8e1-5db5-4248-8ec6-79855e887333/application **Skills:** ATS, Ashby > Watney is seeking a Recruiter to manage the operational backbone of its talent function, ensuring an exceptional candidate experience from sourcing through offer. The role involves coordinating interviews, maintaining ATS records, and supporting sourcing efforts for technical and executive roles. ## Job description ## Our Mission Expand human ambition in the physical world. Critical infrastructure is constrained by labor shortages, hazardous working conditions, and operational complexity. Watney builds and deploys autonomous robotic systems that increase the speed and capacity of buildout, starting with data centers. We believe the most important decision you can make is what you work on and who you work with. Watney builds and deploys autonomous robotic systems for the largest hyperscalers in the world. Come work with the former GSM for the iPhone, the architect of Uber's realtime pricing engine, and the engineer behind the world’s fastest EV racecar at ETH Zurich. ## About the Role Watney is looking for a Senior Recruiter to join our fast-growing talent function and help us build one of the most exceptional teams in robotics. You'll work closely with our founders and team to keep candidates moving efficiently through our process, making sure every person who touches Watney has an exceptional experience. This is a hands-on, full cycle recruiting opportunity to scale Watney from 25 to 60+ by the end of the year. You will own full-cycle recruiting across multiple disciplines simultaneously: technical, GTM, operational, and leadership roles. We're looking for someone who takes candidate experience personally, loves a well-run process, and is energized by working at a company that's doing something genuinely hard and important. ## What You'll Do - Build and refine sourcing strategies that go beyond volume: creative outbound, referral networks, and community engagement - Help shape Watney's recruiting function, employer brand and candidate experience from first touch to offer - Work cross-functionally with founders and operators to keep hiring running smoothly - Maintain clean, accurate records in our ATS (Ashby) and help build out our tracking infrastructure - Coordinate interviews, work trials, and candidate communications across all active searches - Help draft and post job descriptions, assist with scheduling, and keep the pipeline moving without bottlenecks You May Be a Good Fit If You: - Have 4+ years of experience as a full-cycle recruiter, ideally at a fast-moving startup or tech company - Are an exceptional top-of-funnel operator: you find candidates others miss, and you create pipeline in unique ways - Are obsessively organized and take pride in running a tight, candidate-friendly process - Communicate clearly and warmly: candidates feel cared for, not processed - Are comfortable navigating ambiguity and shifting priorities without losing track of the details - Learn tools quickly and are comfortable in Ashby or a comparable ATS - Are genuinely curious about robotics, AI, or deep tech. You don't need to be an engineer, but you should be excited by what Watney is building We’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive team. At Watney Robotics, we welcome people of all backgrounds and identities, and we make hiring decisions based on skills, experience, and potential. If you’re passionate about robotics but don’t meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply! Curious to learn more? Follow us here on [X](https://x.com/watneyrobotics/) and [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics/about/) ## About Watney ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Develops autonomous robotics systems to operate datacenter and supercomputing infrastructure, partnering with hyperscalers to accelerate compute scaling. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Ryan Gannon (Co-Founder), Sean Cheong (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering / Datacenter Infrastructure Automation - **Target customers**: Hyperscale cloud providers and large-scale data center operators (Enterprise B2B) - **Mission or purpose statement**: “Deploy an abundant, intelligent workforce” by enabling the growth of critical infrastructure through autonomous robots. ## Products & Services - **Autonomous Datacenter Robotics Platform**: A fleet of autonomous robots designed for datacenter buildout and breakfix operations. The system handles physical tasks such as server installation, cable management, maintenance, and repair, reducing human labor and accelerating deployment timelines. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available - **Key Metric** (Private): **$21.0M in total funding** (Seed round closed May 30, 2025) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Conviction, Abstract, A* (A-star). Partners with the world’s largest hyperscalers (names not disclosed). - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew **183.3% year-over-year** to 11 employees (as of mid-2026) - Monthly headcount growth of **+6.2%** - Active job postings rose **+28.6% month-over-month** and **+350% quarter-over-quarter** - Currently hiring for 9 roles spanning engineering, operations, and strategy ## Competitive Advantages - **Deep domain focus**: Solely dedicated to datacenter and supercomputing infrastructure – a narrow, high-stakes vertical with massive scaling demand. - **Elite founding team**: Includes former GSM for iPhone, former founding engineer at Worldcoin, and a builder of the world’s fastest EV racecar (ETH Zurich). - **Early partnerships with hyperscalers**: Already working with the largest cloud providers, providing critical validation and a clear path to production. - **Full-stack ownership**: Company is moving from prototype to production fleets, offering engineers end-to-end impact from hardware to software. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale from prototype to production fleets**: Transitioning from small-scale deployments to large autonomous fleets. - **Deepen hyperscaler partnerships**: Expand contracts and joint development roadmaps with major cloud providers. - **Grow engineering and operations teams**: Aggressively hiring across robotics, software, facilities management, and deployment strategy to support production scaling. ## Why Work Here - **In-Office culture**: All roles are based in San Francisco (HQ); the company emphasizes in-person collaboration. - **Ground-floor opportunity**: With outsized ownership and visibility, employees shape the “rollout playbook” for a category-defining robotics company. - **Technical challenge**: Work on real systems that combine robotics, AI, hardware, and infrastructure at scale. - **Notable peers**: Colleagues include alumni from Scale AI, Amazon Web Services, Tools for Humanity, Warburg Pincus, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. - **Growth trajectory**: A very young company (founded 2024) with rapid hiring and clear product-market fit, ideal for early-stage career builders. ## Sources 1. [watneyrobotics.com](https://watneyrobotics.com/) 2. [linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics](https://www.linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics) 3. [builtin.com/company/watney-robotics-inc](https://builtin.com/company/watney-robotics-inc) 4. [startups.gallery/companies/watney](https://startups.gallery/companies/watney) ## Other roles at Watney - [Program Manager, Teleoperations](https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-teleoperations-watney-san-francisco-c0zedeb0sc5r) — San Francisco, CA - [Staff Program Manager, Teleoperations](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-program-manager-teleoperations-watney-san-francisco-w7qah1bzn6xd) — San Francisco, CA - [Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/operations-lead-watney-san-francisco-be77taz7js4n) — San Francisco, CA - [Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/manufacturing-engineer-watney-san-francisco-my41btjba2q8) — San Francisco, CA - [Growth Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketing-manager-watney-san-francisco-ek0hqtqhkcz3) — San Francisco, CA - [Business Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/business-operations-lead-watney-san-francisco-9n7j7kpvkzpj) — San Francisco, CA - [Finance Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/finance-manager-watney-san-francisco-1f1kygnh0cag) — San Francisco, CA - [General Application](https://feeny.ai/job/general-application-watney-san-francisco-6nk2g8aqqjr4) — San Francisco, CA - [Engineering Program Manager - Robotics](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-program-manager-robotics-watney-san-francisco-pw4pgcw5ttbz) — San Francisco, CA - [Robotics Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-technician-watney-san-francisco-a9smm1vdp9nt) — San Francisco, CA