Head of Talent Acquisition

About Adelphi: Adelphi's Vision is to build the biggest AI Deployment company for National Security, which requires talent that is extremely good at problem solving, gets excited about National Security challenges, and thrives in software factories. We're executing a Mission that (1) Identifies the core bottlenecks in Warfighting, Intelligence and the Enterprise, (2) Assigns top talent with backgrounds in systems and machine learning engineering, and (3) Finds repeatability in solution development to target similar offices across the DoW/IC. The business has 10x'd in under two years and has built trust with the senior most leaders at the Department of War and Intelligence Community.

About the Role: Adelphi's at an inflection point and we're hiring our first Head of Talent Acquisition. This is a hands-on role that will be tasked with building the team to tackle National Security challenges. This role will design and build out Adelphi’s Talent function ground-up with an engineering-first mindset, while owning the full recruitment cycle.

Clearance Requirement: Candidates must be clearance eligible.

What You’ll Do:

• Full-Cycle Technical Recruiting: Own end-to-end recruitment across Adelphi, running high-touch candidate experiences from initial outreach, scheduling and coordinating technical screens, case studies and all interactions, to offer negotiations and closing candidates.

• Targeted Talent Acquisition: Design and execute proactive sourcing strategies to identify, engage, and pipeline top-tier technical, engineering, and specialized talent across all critical business functions.

• Engineering Partnership & Structured Assessment: Partner closely with engineering teams and technical evaluators to design interview processes that ensure fast, consistent, and objective evaluations.

• Recruiting Infrastructure & Playbooks: Build and document scalable recruiting operations from scratch, such as candidate trackers, process guides, scorecard templates, and interview workflows.

• Talent Strategy & Vendor Management: Own Adelphi’s talent strategy, evaluate platform/sourcing tool performance, and selectively manage external agency or staffing relationships when needed.

• Employer Branding: Work closely with leadership to enhance and promote Adelphi’s brand, making us a talent magnet for top performers in the defense and intelligence communities.

Who You Are

• Proven Talent Leader: A strategic self-starter who transforms ambiguity into structured recruiting strategies, backed by hands-on experience scaling teams within early-stage or high-growth startup environments.

• 0-to-1 Builder: Proven track record operating as a foundational talent partner. You are relentless about attracting exceptional talent, and will work closely with our hiring managers to brainstorm the dynamics of our customer-facing teams. You are comfortable building ATS setups, playbooks, and recruiting infrastructure from scratch with minimal supervision.

• Bias for Speed: We win on rapid execution; you like to move fast and win.

• Technical & Specialized Sourcing Expertise: Demonstrated success sourcing, engaging, and closing hard-to-find software engineers, AI/ML specialists, and cross-functional operators in competitive markets.

• Brand & Storytelling Mindset: Skilled at framing a company's mission and technical culture into a compelling candidate value proposition across outreach and talent networks.

• Hands-On & Execution-Minded: Thrives working at both the tactical level (sourcing candidates, managing pipelines, scheduling) and strategic level (crafting offer frameworks, partnering with executive leadership).

• Clear & Direct Communicator: Strong stakeholder management skills with the confidence to advise hiring managers, manage candidate expectations, and partner directly with C-suite leadership.

• Familiarity with Clearable/Federal hiring: Prior experience recruiting technical talent supporting government, defense, or intelligence agency customers with familiarity in clearable and non-clearable candidate pools.

Why Adelphi?

• Direct Ownership: You will build the foundation of our recruiting engine; every process, tracker, and workflow you establish will shape how Adelphi scales.

• High Impact: Direct ownership of hiring outcomes at a fast-moving, seed-stage company with active government contracts and significant growth ahead.

• Mission-Driven Work: The engineers you hire will build the foundational data and artificial intelligence infrastructure that the U.S. defense and intelligence communities depend on.

Benefits:

• Healthcare coverage: 100% employee premium and 50% dependents premium coverage.

• 401K with 2% company match.

• Equity in a seed-stage business.

• $500 monthly Physical and Mental Health reimbursement program.

• Access to 6713 Club - a members only club in McLean, VA.

• Unlimited time-off policy.

• Opportunity to work on impactful projects in the national security sector.

• Career growth and leadership opportunities in a dynamic, innovative environment.