Cognite operates at the forefront of industrial digitalization, building AI and data solutions that solve some of the world’s hardest, highest-impact problems. With unmatched industrial heritage and a comprehensive suite of AI capabilities, including low-code AI agents, Cognite accelerates the digital transformation to drive operational improvements.

Our moonshot is bold: unlock $100B in customer value by 2035 and redefine how global industry works.

What Cognite is Relentless to achieve

We thrive in challenges. We challenge assumptions. We execute with speed and ownership. If you view obstacles as signals to step forward - not step back - you’ll feel at home here. Join us in this venture where AI and data meet ingenuity, and together, we forge the path to a smarter, more connected industrial future.

How you’ll demonstrate Ownership

We're seeking a strategic talent architect—not a transactional recruitment leader. You view talent acquisition as a core competitive advantage and understand that recruiting elite engineering and commercial talent is fundamentally about investing in the company's long-term trajectory, not filling seats today. You combine obsessive data discipline with genuine human insight, see obstacles as invitations to innovate, and thrive in environments where speed and rigor are non-negotiable.

If you've scaled TA from startup to scale-up, navigated hypergrowth without compromising culture or quality, and believe that the best recruitment leaders are strategists first and operators second—this role is for you. As Talent Acquisition Director for Americas, you will lead, architect, and scale a world-class recruitment engine serving North America, Latin America, and Canada. You'll own the end-to-end talent strategy that ensures Cognite has the elite engineering and commercial talent required to execute our industrial AI vision and hit aggressive regional growth targets.

Strategic Talent Architecture

• Multi-Year Roadmap Execution: Design and execute a multi-year TA strategy aligned with Cognite's product roadmap, go-to-market expansion, and organizational scaling milestones. You'll translate business growth plans into proactive talent pipelines, ensuring we're ahead of hiring needs, not chasing them.
• Future-Proof Workforce Planning: Partner with Finance and P&O to build predictive talent models that anticipate skill gaps 12–24 months forward, identify critical talent clusters (AI/ML engineers, technical sales, data scientists, go-to-market operators), and design non-obvious sourcing and development strategies.
• Competitive Talent Intelligence: Act as the "voice of the market" to senior leadership. You'll provide quarterly talent market analysis, competitive intelligence on how top rivals recruit engineering and commercial talent, compensation benchmarking, and employer branding positioning that shapes Cognite's external narrative.

Operational Excellence & Systems Mastery

• Data-Informed Recruitment Model: Design and implement recruitment processes governed by real-time analytics and AI-powered insights. You'll establish a "systems of record" approach where ATS data, sourcing metrics, and hiring velocity drive all decisions—not intuition or historical practice.
• Recruiter Transformation: Re-engineer the recruiter role for the AI era. You'll identify high-potential team members and position them as strategic advisors and thought partners to hiring managers (moving beyond transactional sourcing), while systematizing routine sourcing and intake work through AI tools and workflow automation.
• Scale Without Quality Decay: Build operational frameworks (structured interview programs, assessments, etc.) that allow you to scale hiring velocity without compromising quality-of-hire, cultural fit, or candidate experience. Measure relentlessly: time-to-fill, quality-of-hire, offer acceptance rate, 6-month and 12-month retention, manager satisfaction.

Executive Influence & Complex Problem-Solving

• Strategic Advisory: Become the trusted advisor to VP and SVP-level stakeholders on talent scarcity, market dynamics, and hiring trade-offs. You'll recommend non-obvious solutions to hard problems—e.g., "We can't hire 50 ML engineers in this market; here's how we partner with universities and internal mobility instead."
• Boundary-Pushing Innovation: Design and pilot new TA initiatives—university relations programs, structured internal mobility frameworks, apprenticeship models for high-potential non-traditional candidates, contractor-to-FTE pathways—that expand our total addressable talent pool.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Lead P&O, Finance, and business leadership through talent-related challenges. You'll drive alignment on hiring budgets, compensation strategies, and headcount planning, ensuring that TA insights directly influence business strategy.

Data Integrity & Governance

• Clean Data as Cultural Value: Champion data hygiene as a core team discipline. You'll establish standards for ATS data quality, activity logging, and reporting that enable every subsequent decision—AI-powered sourcing, predictive analytics, and talent analytics—to rest on a foundation of high-fidelity information.
• Systems Governance: Own the design and evolution of the TA tech stack (ATS, sourcing tools, assessment platforms, analytics). You'll ensure tools are configured as systems of record, not afterthoughts, and that data flows seamlessly between platforms for real-time visibility and AI-powered decision-making.

The Impact you bring to Cognite

• 10+ years of progressive Talent Acquisition experience, with a significant portion (5+ years) in fast-scaling SaaS or AI-focused technology environments, scaling from startup through growth stage.
• 3+ years in a people leadership role with a proven track record of building, scaling, and upskilling high-performance in-house recruitment teams.
• Deep expertise in TA operations and strategy, including:
  • Sourcing strategy and talent pipelining (proactive vs. reactive recruitment)
  • Technical recruiting expertise (engineering, AI/ML, data science roles)
  • Commercial talent recruiting (sales, product, business development)
  • Recruitment metrics and analytics (time-to-fill, quality-of-hire, offer acceptance rate, retention cohort analysis)
• Demonstrated mastery of ATS systems (Greenhouse, Lever, or equivalent) and secondary TA tools. You understand how to configure, optimize, and extract data from these systems.
• Data-informed decision-making: Proven ability to design recruitment models governed by analytics, use forecasting and predictive modeling, and leverage insights to optimize hiring processes.
• Strong understanding of talent market dynamics, including competitive talent intelligence, labor market research, and workforce planning.
• Leadership presence in high-stakes environments. You can present market insights to executives, influence compensation and branding strategy, and navigate complex stakeholder dynamics.

Preferred Experience

• Multi-Market Expertise: Experience managing recruitment operations across multiple regions within the Americas (e.g., US, Canada, LATAM). More international and global experience is an advantage.
• High-growth technology leadership: Prior TA leadership at pre-IPO or high-growth SaaS/AI companies scaling toward IPO or acquisition.
• AI-powered recruitment tools: Exposure to or implementation of AI-driven sourcing, predictive analytics, algorithmic skill-matching, or bias-detection tools in recruitment.
• Employer branding strategy: Built and executed recruitment marketing and employer brand campaigns that meaningfully improved talent quality and hiring velocity.

A snapshot of our many perks and benefits as a Cogniter