HR & Recruiting Lead, APAC

Overview Inferact's mission is to grow vLLM as the world's AI inference engine and accelerate AI progress by making inference cheaper and faster. Founded by the creators and core maintainers of vLLM, we sit at the intersection of models and hardware, a position that took years to build. About the Role We're looking for a HR & Recruiting Lead, APAC to build and run Inferact's talent acquisition engine across Singapore and the broader APAC region. This is a recruiting-first role for a proactive talent hunter who can identify, engage, assess, and close exceptional technical candidates in highly competitive markets. Your primary focus will be building repeatable pipelines for engineering and AI infrastructure talent, with particular emphasis on Singapore and Mandarin-speaking talent networks. You'll own searches end-to-end, from market mapping and outbound sourcing through recruiter screens, candidate management, offer support, and onboarding handoff. You'll work closely with Inferact leadership, engineering, and external recruiting partners while serving as an on-the-ground presence for the Singapore team. A smaller portion of the role will support practical local people operations such as onboarding, benefits questions, employment pass coordination, and office-related needs. This is a hands-on, high-agency role for someone who creates talent networks rather than waiting for applicants to arrive. Skills and Qualifications Minimum qualifications: - Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in business, human resources, psychology, communications, technology, or a related field. - 5+ years of experience in talent acquisition, technical recruiting, executive search, or an equivalent recruiting-focused role. - Demonstrated success proactively sourcing and closing hard-to-hire technical talent rather than relying primarily on inbound applicants or an existing contact list. - Experience recruiting engineers or other highly technical profiles in Singapore, China, or the broader APAC technology market. - Fluency in Mandarin and strong professional English communication skills. - Strong relationships or demonstrated ability to build relationships across Singapore technology and AI talent communities and major Chinese technology companies. - Ability to own searches end-to-end, including intake, market mapping, outbound sourcing, screening, candidate management, stakeholder communication, offer support, and onboarding handoff. Preferred qualifications: - Experience recruiting for AI infrastructure, machine learning systems, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, GPU computing, developer tools, or other deeply technical domains. - Experience building a recruiting function, regional talent program, or new-market hiring motion from 0 to 1. - Experience using LinkedIn, GitHub, research publications, technical communities, referrals, events, and other proof-of-work signals to identify candidates. - Experience partnering directly with founders, engineering leaders, and external recruiting firms in a high-growth startup environment. - Familiarity with Singapore hiring practices, local talent channels, onboarding, benefits administration, and employment pass workflows. - Comfort learning enough about vLLM, inference systems, and Inferact's technical roles to credibly engage sophisticated engineering candidates. Bonus points if you have: - Built durable recruiting networks across both Singapore and Mandarin-speaking technology communities. - Recruited talent from companies such as ByteDance, Kuaishou, Baidu, Xiaohongshu, Alibaba, Tencent, Grab, Sea, TikTok, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, or similar technology organizations. - Created a repeatable sourcing engine for scarce technical talent using market maps, community research, GitHub, publications, referrals, and targeted outbound campaigns. - Supported local employee onboarding, benefits questions, office operations, or immigration coordination in Singapore. Logistics - Location: This role is based o…