Director, Talent Acquisition

Our Mission:

To capture the hearts and minds of millions of players across the world by creating unforgettable games powered by the best technology.

Who You Are:

• Proactive Achiever You consistently take the initiative to drive business results, supported by sound reasoning and detailed execution plans.
• Growth Mindset You champion company-wide success by relentlessly focusing on achieving results, understanding how your work impacts the entire organization, and pushing to make it 10% better every time. You continuously level yourself up to drive the business forward.
• Solution Seeker Fueled by curiosity, you explore various ways to solve a problem. Every hard problem is an opportunity in disguise. 
• Collaborative Spirit You actively foster strong dynamics within and between teams, contributing to our collective success.
• Resilience You consistently approach your work with resilience and a steadfast passion for achievement of our goals despite challenges or setbacks.
• Rooted in Data You leverage data to back intuition. Empirical creativity is your go-to. Imagination led, data validated.

Why you'll want to come to work:

Our Director of Talent Acquisition role offers the rare opportunity to spearhead talent strategies for our amazing global team. This is a high-impact role where you will own the full recruitment lifecycle, including pipeline strategy, employer branding, and candidate experience for all key roles in our studio. Leveraging your expertise in talent acquisition, you'll drive critical hiring initiatives that support our company’s rapid growth and product expansion. Your efforts will directly impact building world-class teams and driving the studio’s success in delivering industry-leading games. This position provides an exciting opportunity to shape the future of our talent pipeline while working in an innovative and collaborative culture focused on delivering high-quality work.

Your Impact:

• Talent Strategy: Develop and execute a comprehensive talent acquisition strategy that aligns with the company's goals. Apply focus in execution.
• Employer Branding: Drive employer branding efforts to position our company as an employer of choice in the gaming industry, highlighting our products through candidate outreach, networking, events, and partnerships.
• Recruitment Process Ownership: Own the entire recruitment lifecycle from sourcing to onboarding, optimizing processes to ensure efficiency, system automation, candidate engagement, and a high-quality new hire experience.
• Performance Metrics: Develop, track and exceed key recruitment performance indicators, including time-to-hire, time in stage, offer acceptance rates, and quality of hire. Implement data-driven recruitment strategies, with a focus on optimization of results.
• Candidate Experience: Create a seamless and engaging candidate experience by ensuring timely communication and fostering relationships that reflect our company values from the first interaction through the onboarding process
• Hiring Manager Partnership: Proactively partner with hiring managers to understand hiring needs, both immediate and longer term. Leverage internal and external market data to develop job descriptions that attract the right talent. Train hiring managers on best practices to ensure evaluations are focused on getting the best candidate for every job.
• Team Management: Hire and lead the talent acquisition team to achieve and exceed performance goals aligned with hiring objectives.
• Technology & Tools: Champion automation by optimizing our Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and recruitment tools to enhance sourcing, interviewing, and overall recruiting processes. Proactively make recommendations for systems and technology advancements that add cohesion and efficiency.
• Reporting: Proactively report on recruitment progress to stay ahead of resourcing needs in alignment with PlayQ’s goals. Leverage market intelligence for benchmarking data.
• Adapt and Iterate : Continuously iterate on existing processes with a focus on results.
• Collaboration: Partner cross-functionally with department heads to ensure alignment on talent needs, organizational growth, and future workforce planning.
• Office Operations: Manage office facilities and operations, including budgeting, vendor management, kitchen and supply stocking, building liaison, and mail distribution.

What you'll bring to the team: 

• Degree: Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, or a related field.
• Experience: 8-12 years of experience in talent acquisition, with a proven track record of successfully scaling teams in line with product growth, ideally in gaming, tech, or entertainment.
• Expertise: Extensive experience in full-cycle recruitment, employer branding, talent analytics/reporting and talent strategy. A demonstrated ability to build talent pipelines and hire across multiple functions, especially in a technical recruitment capacity.
• Communication: Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and build strong relationships with stakeholders at all levels, both internally and externally.
• Problem-Solving: Strong problem-solving skills to address talent challenges and improve recruitment processes.
• Team Management: Proven experience in effectively managing teams, providing clear direction, support, and feedback to drive results.
• Thought Leadership In-depth knowledge of modern recruitment practices, including data-driven decision-making, sourcing tools, recruitment marketing, and candidate experience management.
• Collaboration: Proven ability to partner with key stakeholders, including executives and hiring managers, to deliver effective recruitment strategies that align with business goals.
• Agility: Exhibit flexibility in the way you approach complex problem sets. Focus on the immediate and long term results and understand that in a scaling business, pivots are part of the game.
• Office Support: Proactively roll up your sleeves to ensure office operations run smoothly.

Working at PlayQ:

• Unmatched opportunities to drive success on a mission driven team
• Competitive compensation and equity options
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, long term disability & pet insurance
• Flexible time off
• 401K plan with company match
• Brand new creative office space equipped with tons of natural light, communal areas for collaboration and free parking
• Walking distance to restaurants, coffee shops, and the metro
• Stocked kitchen with snacks and beverages
• Help build and support awesome GAMES. For a living! Who doesn't love games?

At PlayQ, we leverage competitive benchmarking data when setting each role’s base pay range. Individual base salary will be determined based on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, scope of role, business need and geographic location.

The estimated base pay range for this role is listed below.

$140,000-180,000 USD 

Additional information:

• In-office location: Santa Monica, CA
• Preference for local hire in Santa Monica, CA, but open to remote for the right candidate.
• This role is offered as a full time position.

About Us:

PlayQ is a rapidly growing global entertainment and technology company delivering high-quality mobile titles and innovative game development solutions to a worldwide audience. Our games have been downloaded more than 60 million times across the globe, with millions of users playing every day! 

Our dedicated teams, based in downtown Santa Monica, CA, work together to craft the clever, visually stunning, and unforgettable experiences that our players love. Our emphasis on individual leadership means each team member has the opportunity to make a big impact, while our commitment to creative freedom gives them the ability to create whatever they can imagine. 

It’s this mindset that has led us to develop our own IP, infuse games with rich storytelling, build our own development tools, and solve the deepest technical challenges - all in the name of disrupting the mobile gaming landscape.

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