Paraform
Lead PM, Recruiter Tooling
$250-300K base + equity•San Francisco (North Beach)
Company
The Opportunity
About Us
The hardest part of building a company is hiring the right team. Paraform's founders, John and Jeff, learned that firsthand when they tried to recruit each other and saw how broken hiring really is, so they built the platform to fix it. Today companies like Cursor, Palantir, and Ramp build their teams on it.
Paraform is a two-sided marketplace: companies bring their open roles, and more than 10,000 recruiters fill them, around 2,000 working in the product every day. You'd own the operating system those recruiters run their business on: the candidate CRM, sourcing, email sequences, and Para AI's passive-placement engine. It's the connective tissue between recruiters and the platform, the surface they touch most, and the most software-craft-heavy product in the company. You'd be its first PM, set the bar for what great looks like, and report directly to the CTO and co-founder.
It's working: Paraform hit $100M ARR in three years, up 8x last year, with 1,000+ companies hiring on the platform and volume growing toward 400 placements a month. Nearly $900B is spent on recruiting every year, and Paraform is building the talent infrastructure for it, expanding beyond tech into new industries and launching new products on top of the core marketplace.
"In a zero-sum talent war, Paraform is how we win." Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir (customer and angel investor)
Highlights
Rocketship Growth
$0 to $100M ARR in roughly three years, up 8x last year, trusted by 1,000+ companies including Palantir, Cursor, Ramp, and Rippling.
Real Product Ownership
Own the recruiter operating system end to end as its first PM: the CRM, sourcing, and scheduling platform recruiters run their business on, with a new team and a direct line to the CTO.
Build AI Workflows
Chat-first workflows, AI-assisted sourcing and screening, and passive placement. Build the next generation of what recruiters can do.
Backed by the Best
$65M raised, including a $40M Series B led by Scale Venture Partners, with Felicis, BOND, and DST Global. Angels include the co-founders of YouTube, Canva, and Instacart, Stripe COO Claire Hughes Johnson, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein, and OpenAI Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew. Both founders are Forbes 30 Under 30.
Real Scale, Real Impact
10,000+ recruiters, about 2,000 active every day, roughly a million candidates managed, and ~400 hires a month and climbing.
Team
CEO & Co-Founder
Forbes 30 Under 30 (AI). Started Paraform with Jeff after the two discovered how broken hiring was while trying to recruit each other. Previously founded and exited a startup.
CTO & Co-Founder (Hiring Manager)
Forbes 30 Under 30 (AI). Previously at Cruise. You'd report directly to him.
Candidate
Is This You?
You're a B2B SaaS product builder with real craft. You've taken products from zero to one and scaled them from one to a hundred, you own outcomes end to end, and you sweat the details that make software feel great to use. You don't need recruiting experience. You need taste, pace, and ownership.
Your Mission
Own Paraform's recruiter operating system as its first PM and raise the bar on the tools recruiters depend on every day, making them faster, smarter, and more connected, so more candidates get actively managed and more hires happen on the platform.
What you'll get to do
- Own the whole surface: End-to-end ownership of the CRM and the tools recruiters run their business on, with a dedicated team and a direct line to the CTO.
- Ship with craft: Raise the quality bar with well-designed, fast, detail-obsessed tools recruiters genuinely love to use. You decide what great looks like.
- Build the AI layer: Chat-first workflows, AI-assisted sourcing and screening, and Para AI's passive-placement engine, expanding what recruiters can do on the platform.
- Drive the outcome: Grow the number of candidates actively managed on Paraform and move CRM-generated hires from 15% to 30% of all hires.
What we're looking for
- B2B SaaS builder: A strong track record building workflow or productivity software, where you owned the product surface end to end. This is the single most important qualification.
- Zero-to-one and one-to-a-hundred: You've built products from scratch and scaled what's working, comfortable both defining something new and growing it. Fast clock speed, at home with ambiguity.
- High ownership: You operate independently and drive outcomes with minimal oversight, senior enough to lead without hand-holding.
- Craft and design taste: Strong instincts for what makes a product feel great, and an obsession with the details that get there.
- Customer empathy: You get close to your users and build from a real understanding of how they work.
Bonus Points
- Recruiting, ATS, CRM, or sales-engagement product experience (recruiter-as-user tools)
- Marketplace experience, paired with software-product depth
- Early-stage / founding-PM background
- Fluency with modern AI in products (chat-first, agentic workflows)
Interview
What to Expect
Intro Call
Hiring Manager Call
Case Study
On-site
Details
The Fine Print
- Compensation: $250-300K base + equity, with flexibility for an exceptional candidate.
- Reports To: Jeffrey Li (CTO & Co-Founder).
- Level: Product Lead.
- Location: San Francisco (North Beach).
- Perks: 100% covered medical, dental, and vision; daily catered meals; Bay Club membership; annual international offsites; flexible PTO; 401(k).
- Work Authorization: Open to candidates authorized to work in the U.S. H-1B sponsorship and transfers considered.
Next Steps
Interested?
Schedule a confidential conversation with Product Scout.