Founding Talent Associate

Founding Talent Associate – Occam

The Company

Occam is an early-stage, well-funded European MilTech company building advanced technology for defence and national security. Our work is already having real operational impact.

We are still early. The team is small, highly ambitious and growing incredibly quickly. Much of what a scaled company takes for granted does not exist yet.

What we do have is a clear mission, brilliant partners, and people willing to fight through the mud to help us succeed.

The Opportunity

We are looking for an ambitious young person who wants to launch their career by working on one of the most important problems in our company: how do we find the exceptional people we need in Ukraine to achieve our mission?

This is a special projects role focused on talent acquisition in MilTech. You could be an experienced recruiter, or a graduate, or even experienced in something else and wanting to pivot into recruitment. But you do not need to arrive knowing how to be a recruiter. You only need to be hungry with a desire to learn. We will teach you, mentor you and give you increasing ownership as you grow.

You will work closely with the CEO and experienced operators inside a fast-growing European / Ukrainian startup. You will learn how an early-stage company actually works, how difficult decisions get made when there is no playbook, and how to solve problems where the answer is not obvious.

Your job will be to help us find the people we want beside us as we build technology at the edge of deep tech and defence. A large part of that means finding engineers, technical specialists, people already working in defence, veterans with relevant experience and others with unusually valuable skills. That means much more than searching LinkedIn.

The Ukrainian MilTech talent market runs on relationships, networks, reputation and timing. You will learn the market from the inside, understand who knows whom, build on the relationships our existing team already has, develop new ones, and create a network of exceptional people we can work with now and in the future.

We are looking for someone who wants responsibility, growth and to work on a mission that matters.

What You'll Do

• Learn how to solve one of the most important problems in any company: finding and attracting exceptional people
• Build and maintain relationships across the Ukrainian MilTech talent market, including engineers, technical talent, defence professionals and veterans
• Spend time in the market, meeting people in person, attending relevant events and building an understanding of where strong talent can be found
• Take ownership of finding the right people for Occam, from identifying potential talent through to helping bring them into the team
• Design and test your own approaches to the problem, using relationships, technology, AI, social media, automation or whatever else proves effective
  
  

About You

We care much more about your potential than the number of years on your CV.

You might be graduating now. You might have had your first job already. You might even have some experience in recruitment, startups, events, sales, community building or something completely different. What matters is what you are capable of becoming.

You are ambitious, intelligent, sociable and hungry to learn. You are comfortable talking to strangers, building relationships and figuring things out without being given a perfect playbook.

You are curious about technology, comfortable with AI and interested in deep tech, startups or defence. We especially like people who have built, organised, started or taught themselves something simply because they wanted to.

Why Join

This is a chance to accelerate the start of your career.

You will be mentored by the CEO, work closely with experienced founders and operators, and learn how a well-funded European startup is built from the inside.

You will be trusted with one of the most important problems in any company: finding the people who make it succeed. If you are a graduate, this means you will be trusted with a genuinely important business problem rather than spending your first years doing work nobody cares about.

You will gain real responsibility, international exposure, a strong network across the Ukrainian MilTech ecosystem and the kind of experience that can shape the next 10 to 15 years of your career.

Role Details

• Based in Kyiv
• Full-time
• Primarily in-person
• $1,500 to $3,000 per month, commission open to discussion
• B2 English or above required
• Budget for tools, systems and resources that help you succeed
• Salary progression as your responsibility grows
  
  

Interview Process

You will have four interviews in total: three with members of the team, followed by a final interview with the CEO.

Successful candidates will then complete a background check before a formal offer is made.

Not Sure You Fit?

Apply anyway.

We do not hire by checklist, and we are always interested in anomalies. If your background is unusual, your career has been nonlinear or you think you're capable of more than your CV currently proves, we'd like to talk.

Know Someone Else Who Could Be Great?

Refer someone who joins Occam and passes probation, and we will pay you $3,000.

20% is paid when they accept an offer, with the rest paid when they pass probation.