Technical Sourcer - physical sciences

About Periodic Labs

The most important scientific discoveries of our time won’t happen in a traditional lab. We’re an AI and physical sciences company building state-of-the-art models to accelerate breakthroughs across materials, energy, and beyond. Backed by world-class investors and growing rapidly, we operate at the pace the frontier requires. Our team brings deep expertise, genuine ownership, and an insatiable drive to push the boundaries of what’s scientifically possible.

About the Role

Periodic Labs is hiring a Technical Sourcer to help us find and engage the exceptional talent that defines our team. You’ll work across both our “bits” and “atoms” sides — sourcing for software engineers, ML researchers, and AI scientists as well as materials scientists, chemists, physicists, and lab engineers. This is a high-impact, high-craft role: we hire for rare combinations of skill and curiosity, and great sourcing is the first step in finding people the world doesn’t expect to find.

You’ll work directly with our Head of Recruiting and partner with researchers and engineers across the company to build candidate pipelines that match our ambition. You’re comfortable operating in uncharted territory, can craft outreach that actually gets responses, and know how to evaluate technical profiles across diverse disciplines.

What You’ll Do

• Own full-cycle sourcing across technical roles spanning AI/ML research, software infrastructure, and physical sciences (materials, chemistry, physics, lab engineering)

• Build and manage diverse, high-quality talent pipelines using LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, Google Scholar, academic databases, conference publications, and domain-specific communities

• Craft compelling, personalized outreach that resonates with highly specialized candidates who aren’t actively looking — and convert them into engaged prospects

• Partner closely with hiring managers and researchers to deeply understand role requirements, ideal profiles, and the nuances that separate a great candidate from a good one

• Develop and maintain sourcing strategies for hard-to-fill roles, including niche scientific disciplines and emerging fields at the intersection of AI and physical science

• Track pipeline health and sourcing metrics in Ashby (our ATS), including outreach response rates, conversion rates, and time-to-pipeline, and surface insights proactively

• Continuously research the competitive landscape — knowing where top talent works, studies, and publishes, and staying ahead of hiring trends in both AI and deep tech

• Attend conferences, research symposia, and recruiting events to build Periodic Labs’ presence and network in key talent communities

• Collaborate with the recruiting coordinator and Head of Recruiting to ensure sourced candidates have a seamless handoff and excellent early experience

• Contribute to employer branding efforts by helping articulate what makes Periodic Labs unique to candidates across scientific and engineering disciplines

You Will Thrive in This Role If You Have

• 5+ years of sourcing or recruiting experience, with a focus on technical roles in software, AI/ML, or deep tech

• A proven track record of building pipelines for hard-to-fill, highly specialized roles — including research scientists, engineers, or other niche technical profiles

• Deep familiarity with sourcing tools and platforms: LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, ResearchGate, and Boolean search strategies

• Comfort reading and evaluating technical profiles across domains you may not have formal training in — you’re curious enough to learn the difference between an ML researcher and an MLOps engineer, or between a materials scientist and a chemical engineer

• Strong written communication skills and a talent for crafting outreach that feels personal, specific, and worth responding to

• Experience working with an ATS (Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever, or similar) and a track record of maintaining clean data and pipeline hygiene

• High agency and comfort with ambiguity — you can build sourcing strategies from scratch when no playbook exists

• Genuine curiosity about science and technology, even if you’re not a scientist yourself

Especially Strong Candidates May Also Have

• Experience sourcing for physical sciences roles: materials scientists, chemists, physicists, lab engineers, or hardware/instrumentation specialists

• Familiarity with academic recruiting pipelines — PhDs, postdocs, and faculty — and how to engage researchers who aren’t on traditional job boards

• Experience at an AI lab, deep tech company, national lab, or research institution

• Knowledge of the AI/ML talent landscape, including key research groups, university programs, conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR), and where top practitioners tend to cluster

• Experience using sourcing tools like Apollo, SeekOut, Findem, or similar AI-assisted platforms

• A background in recruiting coordination, executive search, or research operations that brings additional context and rigor to candidate engagement

Mechanics

• Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education and training or experience

• Location: Our lab is located in Menlo Park and we prefer folks to be located in Menlo Park or San Francisco but can be flexible based on role

• Compensation: The annual compensation range for this role - $200,000-$250,000

• Visa sponsorship: Yes, we sponsor visas and will do everything we can to assist in this process with our legal support.

We’re building a team of the world’s best — the scientists, engineers, and problem-solvers who don’t just follow the frontier, they define it. If you’re driven to bring AI to life in the physical world and make discoveries that have never been made before, you belong here.