Director of Talent
OLIX
Director of Talent
OLIX
Optical compute hardware for AI inference
AI is growing faster than any technology in history and the explosion in demand has created a massive infrastructure gap; we can no longer build chips or power stations fast enough to keep up. The industry is still leaning on a ten-year-old hardware blueprint that has reached its limit. A new paradigm that is faster and more efficient will be the biggest economic opportunity of the next century and create the most important company of the next decade. The OLIX Decode Accelerator 1 (DX-1) is the first accelerator architected specifically for decode. Rack-scale co-design of logic, data movement, packaging, optics and interconnect enables a step change in system level performance.
The Director of Talent owns how OLIX finds, wins and hires the people who will build it. You will take a talent function built for around 200 people and make it one that carries us confidently to 1,000, across London, Bristol, Austin, San Francisco and Toronto, without lowering the bar on a single hire.
This is a hands on leadership role. You will personally lead our most senior and executive searches, and close people who are not looking. Many of the people we need exist in pools of a few dozen worldwide: III-V device engineers, advanced packaging architects, optical interconnect specialists, AI software engineers, silicon leaders who have taken a chip to production. Hiring them is a precision problem, not a volume one. You will build a team of recruiters as sharp as the engineers they hire, and set an AI strategy for recruiting that changes how we decide, not just how fast we work. The best argument wins here, and we expect you to make it, welcome challenges to it, and change your mind when the evidence says so.
Build and scale the talent function from around 200 to 1,000 people: org design, hiring, priorities and operating rhythm, in place before the headcount arrives
Lead senior and executive searches directly, including the hires that signal the calibre of people joining OLIX
Attract, hire and develop top Recruiters and Sourcers, and hold them to the same bar as our engineers
Own the hiring bar: what great looks like for each role family, and how consistently every interviewer applies it
Build the playbook for extremely scarce talent: mapping the market, building relationships early, and closing passive candidates
Set OLIX's AI strategy for recruiting, deciding where AI improves our judgement and where people need to stay in the loop
Own hiring systems, data and metrics, and partner with the exec team on workforce planning, including saying when a plan is not hireable as written
Build OLIX's talent brand so the best people in photonics, silicon and AI know who we are
Has built and led a talent function through hyper-growth, from a few hundred people toward 1,000 or beyond, while keeping quality high. This is non-negotiable
Has attracted and developed top recruiters, and can name the people who would come with you
Has worked where talent density is top 1% (a frontier AI lab, a leading semiconductor or hardware company, or an elite deep tech scale-up) and knows what that bar looks and feels like
Has personally led senior and executive searches into niche, extremely limited talent pools
A clear point of view on AI in recruiting that goes beyond efficiency, with evidence of putting it into practice
Either versed in deep tech already, or curious enough to go deep on product and technology and hold your own with engineers
Influences through evidence and clear reasoning, not title, and is comfortable disagreeing directly in a founder-led environment
Talent leadership at an AI lab, AI hardware company or semiconductor business
Direct experience hiring in photonics, optoelectronics, advanced packaging, silicon or AI software
Experience hiring across the UK and US and running a multi-site function
Competitive Salary: Commensurate with your experience, skills, and location
Equity & Ownership: Meaningful stock options. You’re not just joining the mission; you’re owning a piece of it
Proximity Bonus: We value your time. To minimise your commute and maximise your life, we offer an annual Living-Local Bonus if your residence is within 20 minutes of the office
Retirement Benefits: Employer-contributed retirement plans to help you build long-term financial security
Due to U.S. export control regulations, candidates’ eligibility to work at OLIX depends on their most recent citizenship or permanent residency status. We are generally unable to consider applicants whose most recent citizenship or permanent residence is in certain restricted countries (currently including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Russia, Belarus, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Venezuela). Applicants who have subsequently obtained citizenship or permanent residency in another country not subject to these restrictions may still be eligible.
OLIX is a London-based AI chip company building optical compute infrastructure for frontier AI inference. Its product line includes specialized hardware components—chips, lasers, and interconnects—that allow each stage of token generation to run on purpose-built hardware rather than general-purpose GPUs. The X-1 platform distributes models across multiple chips linked by a slow-and-wide optical interconnect and uses a deterministic compiler to map work efficiently, while the DX-1 is the first decode accelerator that keeps models in on-chip SRAM without requiring advanced packaging or high-bandwidth memory. The company differentiates itself by providing end-to-end optical hardware designed for AI inference, rather than relying on traditional GPU-based inference pipelines. OLIX’s stated goal is to deliver the DX-1 to first customers by the second half of 2027 and to scale manufacturing and hiring across its global locations to support growth.
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