Independent Talent Sourcer (Contract, Hourly)
Pensive · Remote
About Builders
Builders is a talent agency for people building ambitious careers in AI startups. We get to know what someone has done and what they want next, then introduce them directly to founders and hiring managers, instead of leaving them in an application pile.
In the AI era the definition of a builder is expanding, so we do not only place engineers. Design, product, growth and go-to-market, and non-technical roles like chief of staff, marketing and operations, all come through us.
We work with companies like Ramp, Greptile, Blockit and Circleback, from sourcing through close. We are a team of ex-founders, engineers, designers and PMs from fast-growing startups ourselves.
The role
Same companies and the same briefs as our Independent Talent Sourcer (Contract, Contingent) role, sourcing for early-stage (seed through Series B) AI startups. The difference is that we pay for your time whether or not anyone signs up, but the bar for this role is also higher.
This is a fully remote contract role, open anywhere you can work legally. There are no minimum hours and no quota. You pick when you work and how much.
Responsibilities
Source against live briefs on companies and roles
Run outreach and get people to sign up to Builders through your referral link
Log what you did: who you contacted, through what channel, and who responded
We screen them, introduce them to companies, and run the process through to the offer
Output per hour is the measure, not hours logged and not a volume target. Roughly, how many people you reached and how many signed up for the time you billed
Compensation
An hourly rate for the hours you actually work. Invoiced monthly.
Performance bonuses on qualified signups you sourced.
No minimum hours and no quota. You pick when you work and how much.
We agree on the rate, a ceiling on hours per week and the briefs before you start. Anything above the ceiling should be checked with us.
Platform visibility. You see your own candidates, the stage each one has reached, and the status of every payout. You do not see other sourcers' candidates and they do not see yours. If you ever stop working with us, you keep access to payout status and candidate stages, so you can follow anything still in flight to the end.
There is no weekly minimum hours or sourcing quota. What we would want to talk about is a stretch of heavily billed weeks with little coming out of them. If that happens we will raise it with you early and may offer our contingent model instead.
How you work
Your tools, your accounts, your data. Whatever tools or automation you already use are fine by us.
No one else can see your candidates. You can check whether a specific person is already in the system by looking up their LinkedIn or email, so you know before you spend time on someone.
You see the companies and roles by name, with a brief on each: what they do, what they pay and who they want. Where a company shares it, the brief also covers who they have already passed on.
General guidelines
One-to-one outreach needs no sign-off. Sequenced, bulk or automated outreach needs approval, both that you are running it and the copy. Usually approved once per campaign or template.
Nothing about a role or company in a public post, job board, newsletter or group message without asking first.
Some companies are marked restricted. One-to-one only, never in a sequence. A few of them would drop us the same day their name showed up in mass outreach.
Do not source candidates out of our own client companies. You can see the full client list in the platform, so check it before you build a target list.
On work authorization, ask two things only: are you authorized to work in the US, and will you need sponsorship now or in the future. Nothing about which visa.
Please do not forward a brief to a candidate. Use what is in it to write your own outreach and to answer their questions.
Who would be a good fit
Sourcers who already source for startups and can produce from the first week, since we are paying for the time from the start. They bring either a network they can work directly or an AI-native way of finding people, and they have worked the agency model, since these are briefs we assign rather than roles you pick. Expect calibration on the companies and the roles, not training on how to source.
We go on what you have actually sourced, so before we agree a rate we will ask for:
Roles you have sourced for that led to hires and at what type of companies
A walkthrough of how you found one of them, start to finish