Associate Director, Recruiting

The Associate Director, Recruiting is a hands-on recruiting leader who will play a central role in building the talent organization at Neurona Therapeutics. This is a unique opportunity to recruit exceptional talent across a highly specialized cell therapy organization, spanning research and development, clinical operations, regulatory, quality, manufacturing, and corporate functions. You will serve as a primary recruiting partner to hiring managers, bringing strong recruiting judgment, technical curiosity, and a high level of ownership to every search. You will personally source, assess, interview, and close candidates, while helping the organization strengthen how we define roles, evaluate talent, and make hiring decisions.

This is a highly hands-on individual contributor position for a recruiting leader who wants to remain close to the work, not a people-management role. The Associate Director, Recruiting reports directly to the VP of Human Resources.

Responsibilities include

Own full-cycle recruiting across Neurona – from intake and role definition through sourcing, screening, interviewing, offer, negotiation, and close — personally managing the process end-to-end rather than relying on a recruiting coordinator for day-to-day execution.
Partner closely with hiring managers to understand business needs, define effective search strategies, calibrate candidate profiles, and provide thoughtful recruiting counsel.
Own interview scheduling and candidate logistics, including coordinating interview panels, communicating next steps, preparing interview teams, and ensuring a smooth and timely candidate experience.
Personally source and engage exceptional talent, including passive candidates in highly competitive areas such as cell therapy, ATMPs, CMC, clinical development, regulatory, quality, manufacturing, and other specialized life science disciplines.
Bring strong technical recruiting judgment to candidate evaluation, including the ability to distinguish direct, hands-on experience from adjacent, transferable, or primarily project management experience.
Help strengthen the hiring process through structured intake meetings, consistent phone screens, interview guides, scorecards, candidate assessments, and disciplined debriefs.
Provide clear and objective candidate assessments that help hiring managers understand strengths, gaps, level, relevant experience, and potential risks.
Build and maintain strong talent pipelines for current and anticipated hiring needs, with particular focus on difficult-to-fill technical and scientific positions.
Manage multiple searches with a high degree of independence, maintaining momentum, prioritization, communication, and follow-through across the hiring process.
Advise hiring managers on market conditions, candidate availability, compensation expectations, and recruiting strategy.
Manage the candidate experience from first contact through close, representing Neurona with professionalism, credibility, and transparency.
Maintain recruiting metrics and reporting, giving leadership visibility into open positions, pipeline health, time-to-fill, recruiting activity, and hiring progress.
Partner with HR and business leaders on workforce planning and headcount alignment, ensuring recruiting priorities remain connected to business needs.
Ensure recruiting practices comply with applicable employment laws and company policies, including California and federal requirements.
Help improve recruiting tools, processes, and practices, including thoughtful use of technology and AI where it can improve efficiency, sourcing, assessment, and candidate experience.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant experience.
10+ years of progressive, full-cycle recruiting experience within biotechnology, biopharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals, or life sciences, with direct experience recruiting for scientific, technical, clinical, or regulated functions.
Experience recruiting across scientific, technical, clinical, quality, regulatory, manufacturing, and corporate functions.
Experience recruiting within cell therapy, gene therapy, ATMP, regenerative medicine, or other advanced therapeutic modalities strongly preferred.
Demonstrated ability to independently manage complex, specialized searches from intake through close.
Strong recruiting judgment and the ability to evaluate technical experience, including understanding the difference between direct hands-on expertise and adjacent or transferable experience.
Experience using structured interviewing, scorecards, candidate assessments, and consistent debrief processes to improve hiring decisions.
Strong passive sourcing skills and an established network within relevant life science talent markets.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce clear, concise, and objective candidate assessments for hiring managers and leadership.
Ability to operate with a high degree of independence, urgency, discretion, and accountability in a fast-moving environment.
Strong understanding of California and federal employment requirements relevant to recruiting and hiring.
Comfortable working directly with hiring managers and technical leaders and serving as a trusted recruiting advisor.
Experience with Paycor or similar ATS/recruiting technology preferred.

Alert
We are aware of active recruitment scams using the Neurona name, where individuals pose as our recruiters or post fake remote job openings and make fraudulent job offers online. Please note, that we will never make an offer of employment without conducting multiple rounds of face-to-face interviews using secure video-conferencing technology. Additionally, we will never ask candidates to cash checks or make any payment to be considered for a position.
If you believe you have been a victim of a phishing scam, please visit the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at https://www.cisa.gov/be-cyber-smart/report-incident to learn how to report it.