Talent Lead – Biotech Startup

About the role

Adaptyv is building an automated lab so that AI agents can run biology experiments, and is growing from around 25 to 50 people in the next twelve months. Hiring is currently done by the founders, and the Talent Lead is the hire that fixes it: owning talent as a function, from what to hire and how to assess it to the final organisation. The role is based in Lausanne.

Key responsibilities

• Own hiring end to end: define what to hire with the team, write and post roles, build the pipeline, run the process and close people.
• Build the recruiting team, hiring and managing specialist recruiters (most likely a technical recruiter first), acting as player-coach for a while.
• Own the inbound pipeline and prevent good candidates from getting lost.
• Run work trials, scheduling them, matching them internally and making them a great experience.
• Make the pitch to candidates, often as the first human they meet, selling the mission.
• Own the ATS (Ashby) and improve it beyond its current features.
• Work with hiring managers across biology, software, automation and commercial to sharpen their needs.
• Build the parts of the org touching hiring: leveling, compensation bands, interview structure, onboarding and offers.

Required profile

• Hired technical people at real depth for several years in a high-growth environment and closed people who had other options.
• Able to talk to scientists and engineers, with enough understanding of biology and lab automation to judge candidates.
• Not a mercenary: cares about what the company builds and treats every hire as a long-term bet.
• Uses AI tools seriously, and ideally automates their own pipeline and writes scripts against the ATS.
• Self-starter with high autonomy, fast learner, comfortable moving fast and setting a bar.
• Bonus: experience with the Swiss labour market, hiring in European biotech or deep tech, or building a talent function from scratch.