About this role
About TraversalTraversal is the AI Site Reliability Engineer (AI SRE) for the enterprise.
Production complexity was already outpacing what engineering teams could manage manually, and AI-generated code is accelerating that gap. Traversal is built for that challenge, autonomously understanding and reasoning across even the largest, most complex production environments to diagnose, fix, and prevent incidents. Our mission is to free engineers from endless firefighting and give them more time to focus on creative, high-impact work.
Today, Traversal operates in mission-critical environments at some of the world’s largest enterprises. Our roots remain deeply embedded in AI research, and we’ve brought together researchers from institutions including MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia, and Cornell with world-class technical staff and operators from companies like Google, Meta, Datadog, ServiceNow, and Citadel Securities to take on one of the hardest problems for AI to solve. Traversal is backed by Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Hanabi, NFDG, and American Express Ventures.
The RoleAs a Recruiter, you will own full-cycle hiring for some of Traversal’s most critical roles, initially focused on our Engineering, Product, and Design (EPD) team. You’ll partner directly with hiring managers and founders to define hiring strategy, build and manage pipelines, and deliver an exceptional candidate experience from first outreach through offer. You’ll join a lean, high-ownership Talent team, with real latitude to build process and bar as we scale. As the team grows, this role may expand beyond EPD to support hiring across the company.
ResponsibilitiesOwn full-cycle recruiting for assigned roles, initially within EPD and Research: manage everything from intake through offer, including sourcing, screening, and closing
Partner with leaders to build hiring strategy: calibrate role scope, must-haves, and success profiles, and translate them into effective sourcing and screening plans
Build and manage active pipelines by proactively sourcing and engaging top candidates, rather than relying solely on inbound applications
Drive a best-in-class candidate experience, ensuring every candidate has a thoughtful, well-communicated process
Improve recruiting process and infrastructure by building playbooks that scale with the team
Represent Traversal acting as a strong ambassador for the company in every candidate interaction
Requirements5+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, ideally including technical hiring at a startup or high-growth company
Demonstrated ability to source and close candidates independently, without heavy reliance on inbound pipelines
Strong stakeholder management skills; comfortable driving process with engineering, product, and design leaders
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
High degree of ownership and comfort operating with ambiguity and limited process
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail across a high volume of concurrent searches
Genuine curiosity about AI and enterprise software, with the ability to speak credibly to technical candidates
Nice to HaveRecruiting experience at an early-stage (Series A/B) AI or developer tooling startup
Experience recruiting for applied research or ML-heavy roles
Familiarity with modern ATS and sourcing tools (e.g., Ashby, LinkedIn Recruiter, Gem)
Experience building recruiting processes or playbooks from scratch
Experience recruiting across multiple functions beyond engineering (e.g., go-to-market, operations)
Experience with AI native recruiting tools (Juicebox, Metaview, etc.)
CompensationWe offer competitive compensation, startup equity, health insurance, and additional benefits. The U.S. base salary range for this full-time, in-person role in New York is $170,000 - $250,000, plus equity and benefits. Our salary ranges are based on location, level, and role. Individual compensation is determined by experience, skills, and job-related knowledge.
Why You Should Join UsTraversal is a place to take on hard, meaningful problems with real ownership from day one. You’ll work alongside people who challenge you to grow, learn constantly, and help define a new category of infrastructure software. We think long term, move quickly, and hold a high bar without taking ourselves too seriously.
We offer competitive salary and equity packages, health insurance, fertility benefits, a great tech setup stipend and flexible time off. Plus in-office snacks, team happy hours and outings, an annual company offsite, and plenty of built in time to collaborate across teams.
Traversal is fully in-office, 5 days a week, based in New York near Madison Square Park. We have a collaborative, hard-working culture and are energized by building the future of AI-powered software maintenance.