Technical Recruiter Job Description
A technical recruiter job description template, the ATS keywords hiring teams screen for, and why engineering fluency matters more than tenure here.
Technical recruiting is one of the few recruiting specialties where domain fluency you cannot fake matters more than years served. Knowing the difference between a backend engineer and a full-stack one, what "distributed systems experience" actually implies, and why five years of WordPress work is not a fit for a Kubernetes-heavy platform role — none of that comes from a script. A recruiter who cannot make those calls wastes an engineering manager's time fast, and engineering managers tend to screen recruiters at least as hard as recruiters screen candidates.
The market for this role is more cyclical than most HR-adjacent jobs, because technical recruiter headcount tracks engineering headcount closely. When engineering hiring freezes, technical recruiting roles are often the first cut; when it thaws, they are often the first rehire. That volatility is worth knowing about before you specialize in it.
Compensation here is also worth reading carefully. A meaningful share of technical recruiter roles, especially agency-side ones like this one, pay a base salary plus commission or a placement bonus. The salary figures below are base only — ask about the variable structure separately before you compare offers.
Perrindale · Austin, TX
Full-time · Hybrid
$65,000 – $95,000
About the role
Perrindale is a technical staffing partner for growth-stage technology companies, and we are hiring a Technical Recruiter to run full-cycle search for engineering, DevOps and data roles across a portfolio of active client accounts. You will typically carry six to ten open requisitions at a time, spanning several different clients' stacks and hiring bars.
This is a high-context-switching role by design. You might run a backend engineering screen for one client in the morning and a data platform search for a completely different one after lunch, which means the fluency this role demands is broader than recruiting for a single in-house engineering org, even though the years of experience required are often lower.
What you'll do
- Run full-cycle recruiting — sourcing through offer — across an assigned portfolio of client accounts.
- Partner with client engineering managers to translate a requisition into an accurate technical profile, not just a keyword list.
- Source candidates directly through Boolean search, LinkedIn Recruiter and referral networks.
- Conduct technical phone screens with enough fluency to filter for real signal, not just resume keywords.
- Manage candidate communication and experience across a multi-week interview process for several clients at once.
- Negotiate offers, mediating between candidate expectations and a client's approved compensation band.
- Track pipeline metrics — submit-to-interview ratio, time-to-fill — separately for each client account.
- Stay current on which stacks and skills are actually in demand as client hiring needs shift quarter to quarter.
What we're looking for
- Two or more years of full-cycle technical recruiting, agency or in-house.
- Enough engineering vocabulary to tell a backend role from a full-stack one without a hiring manager explaining it every time.
- Hands-on sourcing experience — Boolean search, LinkedIn Recruiter, or a comparable tool.
- Comfortable reading a resume and a GitHub profile for real signal, not just matching keywords.
- Strong written and verbal communication for both candidate-facing and client-facing conversations.
- Ability to manage a full pipeline across several simultaneous searches without dropping candidates.
Nice to have
- Experience with an ATS/CRM such as Greenhouse, Lever, or Bullhorn.
- A specialization — infrastructure, data and ML, or security — rather than pure generalist recruiting.
- Some background in or adjacent to engineering: a bootcamp, technical support, or a related field.
- Experience recruiting at a fast-scaling startup, where requirements change mid-search.
- SHRM-CP or an AIRS sourcing certification.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employee premiums covered in full.
- 401(k) with a 3% company match.
- Commission on completed placements, paid quarterly and uncapped, on top of base salary.
- Hybrid schedule: three days a week in the Austin office.
- Eighteen days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$65,000–$95,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (3)
Important (5)
Mentioned in passing (9)
Frequently asked questions
Does this role pay commission on top of the base salary?
Yes, in most agency-side technical recruiting roles, including this one. Structures vary widely by employer — some pay a flat amount per completed placement, some scale with the placement's salary, and some tie a bonus to quarterly team targets rather than individual placements. Always ask for the specific structure and realistic average earnings before accepting an offer; the salary figures above are base only.
Do I need an engineering background to be a good technical recruiter?
No. Most strong technical recruiters were never engineers — they are recruiters who got curious enough to learn what the vocabulary actually means. What matters is being willing to ask a hiring manager "what does that actually involve" enough times early on that you stop having to ask later.
What is the difference between agency and in-house technical recruiting?
Agency recruiters, like this role, typically juggle several client accounts at once, move faster, and often earn commission on top of base pay, at the cost of going deep on any one team. In-house recruiters work one company's roles, build much deeper product and team context over time, and are usually paid a straight salary plus an annual bonus rather than per-placement commission.
This was a sample. Your resume should be tailored to the real thing.
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