Talent Acquisition & Operations Specialist

Accountabilities:: Manage the full recruitment lifecycle: Oversee every stage of hiring, from understanding hiring needs and developing job descriptions to sourcing, screening, interviewing, offer management, and onboarding handovers. Drive international recruitment: Lead hiring initiatives across APAC and the Middle East, adapting recruitment strategies to local talent markets, compensation expectations, notice periods, and work-permit requirements. Recruit across diverse functions: Source and attract talent for fintech-related positions, including product, engineering, risk, compliance, payments, and operations, as well as marketing, performance marketing, affiliate, partnerships, media buying, SEO, and CRM roles. Build proactive talent pipelines: Identify and engage passive candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter, professional networks, referrals, industry communities, job boards, and targeted headhunting. Establish recruitment processes: Develop and implement structured hiring practices, including job descriptions, interview frameworks, evaluation scorecards, and applicant tracking systems (ATS). Advise hiring managers: Provide insights into talent availability, market salary benchmarks, recruitment timelines, and hiring strategies while maintaining strong stakeholder relationships. Manage recruitment performance: Monitor and report key hiring metrics, including time-to-hire, sourcing effectiveness, and offer acceptance rates. Strengthen employer branding and coordinate external recruitment agencies when necessary. Oversee employee lifecycle administration: Manage onboarding and offboarding processes, including employment documentation, contracts, equipment, system access, and first-week arrangements. Maintain HR systems and records: Ensure employee information, HR documentation, and records are accurate, organized, and compliant within the HR information system (HRIS). Coordinate payroll and compliance activities: Work closely with finance teams and external Employer of Record (EOR) or payroll providers to manage monthly payroll inputs, employee changes, new joiners, and departures across multiple countries. Support employee relations and engagement: Handle day-to-day HR queries related to leave, benefits, policies, and documentation, while coordinating background checks, reference checks, probation reviews, performance cycles, and engagement initiatives. Develop people operations infrastructure: Draft, update, and implement HR policies and employee handbook documentation tailored to a remote, multi-country workforce. Optimize HR operations: Manage recruitment and HR vendors, tools, and subscriptions, identifying opportunities to automate repetitive administrative tasks and improve operational efficiency. Requirements: 3–5 years of hands-on experience managing full-cycle talent acquisition, ideally within startups or high-growth organizations. Proven experience working independently as a solo recruiter or within a small recruitment team, with the ability to build hiring processes from the ground up. Demonstrated recruitment experience within the fintech sector, ideally covering areas such as payments, product, engineering, risk, compliance, and operations. Experience recruiting for marketing and affiliate-focused businesses, including performance marketing, affiliate management, partnership management, and related commercial positions. Practical experience managing recruitment across APAC and the Middle East, with a solid understanding of regional talent markets, salary expectations, and hiring practices. Working knowledge of HR and people operations, including employee onboarding and offboarding, HR documentation, HRIS administration, and payroll coordination. Strong sourcing and headhunting capabilities, particularly when identifying and engaging passive candidates for specialized or hard-to-fill positions. Excellent organizational and time-management skills, with the ability to manage multiple recruitment assignments and administrative responsibilities simultaneously. A proactive, independent, and solutions-oriented mindset, combined with strong ownership, prioritization, and adaptability in a fully remote environment. Excellent written and verbal English communication skills, with the confidence to collaborate effectively with founders, senior leaders, and stakeholders across different markets. Hands-on familiarity with at least one applicant tracking system (ATS), one HR information system (HRIS), and LinkedIn Recruiter. Nice to have: Experience establishing recruitment or people operations functions, ATS platforms, or HRIS solutions from scratch. Familiarity with payments, lending, financial technology, or other regulated industries. Experience collaborating with Employer of Record (EOR) providers and coordinating multi-country payroll operations. Exposure to employer branding, recruitment marketing, and talent attraction initiatives. Experience creating recruitment dashboards, analyzing hiring data, and preparing performance reports. Additional language skills relevant to APAC or Middle Eastern markets, such as Arabic, Bahasa, Thai, or Vietnamese. Benefits: Fully remote working arrangement, with the flexibility to work from anywhere in India. Competitive salary package. Significant ownership and autonomy to build and develop recruitment and people operations functions from the ground up. Opportunity to work across multiple international markets throughout APAC and the Middle East. Direct collaboration with founders and senior leadership, enabling fast decision-making and minimal bureaucracy. Exposure to a dynamic, international fintech environment with opportunities to influence business growth and organizational development.