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Hypersonica is building a defence technology business in Canada and seeking an experienced Senior Technical Recruiter to lead hiring strategy and execution for the Canadian operation.
You will partner directly with the Canadian MD and Head of Talent to develop and execute a capability-based hiring plan. Your responsibilities include owning the full recruiting lifecycle—from role definition and market mapping through sourcing, assessment, closing, and offer negotiation. You'll build the first talent maps across Canadian defence, aerospace, space, propulsion, weapons, autonomy, advanced manufacturing, and deep-tech engineering sectors. A key focus is identifying and engaging exceptional passive candidates unlikely to be actively job-seeking.
You'll work closely with technical leadership in Canada and Europe to define hiring standards, design interview processes and scorecards that maximize signal without unnecessary complexity, and develop a deep understanding of the Canadian defence and engineering talent market—including capability distribution, compensation benchmarks, security constraints, and competitive landscape. You'll create an exceptional candidate experience that reflects the company's pace, ambition, and quality standards, while protecting talent density by maintaining high hiring bars.
You'll build recruiting playbooks, networks, referral channels, and sourcing infrastructure to enable scaling. You'll also help shape the Canadian business culture through thoughtful hiring decisions.
Within the first year, success means the strongest technical talent in Canada knows Hypersonica, hiring managers trust you as a strategic partner, you've established repeatable talent maps and sourcing channels across critical disciplines, and candidate processes are fast and high-signal.
The company offers direct access to founders and senior leadership, high autonomy with no micromanagement, the freedom to build the recruiting model from scratch, daily exposure to exceptional engineers and defence leaders, and a fast-moving environment where ideas become reality quickly. Compensation is competitive with meaningful share options aligned to impact.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Proven track record as a technical recruiter finding and closing difficult technical talent
- Ideally experienced within defence, aerospace, or space sectors
- Comfortable recruiting senior engineers, technical leaders, and highly specialized individual contributors
- Demonstrated ability to map markets, approach exceptional passive candidates, and create interest proactively
- Commercial acumen to understand business context beyond job descriptions
- Willingness to challenge hiring managers and sharpen briefs
- Ability to operate with ambiguity as the Canadian organization is being built
- Experience building recruiting systems rather than inheriting them
- Direct, curious, and highly accountable
- Comfortable operating around sensitive defence programmes, security requirements, and confidential information
- Obsessed with quality and talent density over volume
