Senior Talent Acquisition Manager (m/f/d)

You will recruit across different functions, with a particular focus on senior, business-critical and hard-to-fill roles spanning Product, Technology and Business. You will work closely with our founders and hiring managers to define what we actually need, identify what great looks like for each role and translate this into rigorous, efficient hiring processes. This is a hands-on recruiting role, not a generalist People & Culture or Organizational Development position. You will personally run critical searches, source candidates, conduct interviews and close hires. At the same time, we expect you to help raise the quality of hiring across Mindpeak by challenging unclear requirements, improving interview practices and bringing structure and discipline to how we make hiring decisions. You will not inherit a recruiting team, but you will have the mandate and budget to work with external recruiters and specialist search partners where they add value. Your Mission

• Own the full recruiting cycle: from search strategy, sourcing and screening through interviews, offers and closing.
• Partner with our CEO and hiring managers as a trusted talent advisor: clarify requirements, challenge assumptionsand drive decisions forward.
• Proactively identify and engage high-quality candidates, particularly for senior, leadership and hard-to-fill roles.
• Run high-quality interviews that go beyond CVs and polished answers, uncovering concrete evidence of impact, decision-making and individual contribution.
• Select, brief and actively manage external recruiters and search partners where they add value.
• Keep pipelines, bottlenecks and risks transparent for leadership, and keep improving how Mindpeak hires without unnecessary bureaucracy.

What Success Looks Like Priority searches run with clear role profiles and explicit assessment criteria, even when requirements start out ambiguous. You successfully engage high-quality passive candidates and build genuine interest in Mindpeak and our roles. Interviews across Mindpeak become more rigorous and consistent, based on evidence rather than titles or impressions. Most importantly, critical roles get closed with people who raise the quality of the organisation. Your Experience

• Substantial hands-on experience owning full-cycle recruiting; a background in executive search or another environment with a strong sourcing and assessment culture is a plus.
• Proven track record of closing senior, leadership and hard-to-fill searches, with strong active sourcing skills and confidence approaching passive candidates.
• Experience in a technology-driven, high-growth environment, recruiting across functions such as Product, Technology and Business. You don't need to be technical, but you understand how these teams work well enough to recruit credibly.
• Experience working directly with founders or demanding senior hiring managers and influencing their decisions rather than simply executing requirements.
• Experience translating unclear business needs into clear role profiles, scorecards and structured interview processes.
• Experience selecting and managing external agencies or headhunters.
• Fluent English and German (at least C2 level) Your Profile
• You interview for evidence and have strong talent judgment. You can tell an impressive CV or polished answer from real evidence that someone will succeed.
• You know what good looks like and can credibly bring that standard into an organisation still developing its own.
• You challenge senior stakeholders constructively and communicate clearly and directly with executives, hiring managers and senior candidates alike.
• You take ownership. When a search isn't working, you diagnose why and change the approach, and you know when requirements need to change.
• You create structure without bureaucracy, just enough process to improve speed, quality and accountability.
• You learn quickly and immerse yourself in unfamiliar domains until you can recruit credibly in them.