Strategic Talent Acquisition Partner responsible for full-cycle hiring across EMEA, especially the Middle East. Advise senior leaders, design data-driven regional TA strategies, scale engineering and commercial teams, lead employer branding, improve TA processes, and ensure an inclusive candidate experience while forecasting hiring needs and optimizing recruitment performance.
Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
We’re hiring a Strategic Talent Acquisition Partner to help power our next phase of growth across EMEA. This is a high-impact, business-critical role at the heart of Shield’s AI international expansion—supporting new market entries with strong focus on the Middle East region, building and scaling best-in-class sales and engineering organisations, and partnering with senior leaders to shape our future. This is not a transactional recruiting role. You will operate as a strategic advisor, market expert, and builder—owning how talent enables scale across diverse EMEA markets.
What you'll do:
- Partner closely with senior and executive-level stakeholders to understand business objectives, growth plans, and capability gaps.
- Translate market entry and growth plan into scalable, data-driven regional talent acquisition strategies.
- Act as a thought partner and advisor on talent trends, market intelligence, and competitive hiring strategies.
- Advise leaders on market feasibility from a talent perspective (availability, cost, timing, and risk).
- Own the end-to-end recruitment lifecycle for all roles including senior, critical, and hard-to-hire roles.
- Partner to design and execute sourcing strategies that attract high-impact engineering and commercial talent across the EMEA region
- Shape local hiring approaches while maintaining a consistent global hiring bar.
- Act as an EMEA ambassador for our employer brand, ensuring we are positioned as an employer of choice in the region
- Partner with Branding, Comms, and Leadership to shape and localise our employer value proposition for different EMEA countries.
- Identify and activate employer branding opportunities (events, content,
communities, referrals, social presence). - Ensure inclusive, consistent, and authentic candidate experience that reinforces our brand and values at every touchpoint.
- Use data to forecast hiring needs, track progress, and continuously optimise our recruitment performance.
- Improve TA processes, tools, and ways of partnering to support speed, quality, and scale.
- Be a visible voice for talent across the EMEA leadership community.
Strategic Talent Partnership
Execution with Excellence
Employer Branding & Talent Attraction
Driving at Scale
Required qualifications:
- Proven experience as a strategic talent acquisition partner driving full cycle hiring for both engineering and go to market talent within the defence space or Public Sector Saas space.
- Demonstrated success supporting new market entries and scaling teams at pace, in particular the Middle East region.
- Strong credibility working with senior leaders and executives as a trusted talent advisor and business partner.
- Deep understanding of EMEA talent dynamics, sourcing strategies, and competitive intelligence.
- Highly consultative, commercially minded, and comfortable operating with ambiguity.
- Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution.
Full-time regular employee offer package:
Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
Temporary employee offer package:
Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.
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Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
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