Lead Talent Partner – Product and Engineering

About the role

Orbital is looking for a Lead Talent Partner to own the end‑to‑end hiring strategy for Product and Design Engineering teams. You will partner directly with the CTO and senior engineering leaders to build a market‑leading attraction engine and deliver low‑volume, high‑calibre hires across the UK and occasional US roles.

Key responsibilities

• Own the Product & Design Engineering hiring strategy in partnership with the CTO, including forecasting, sequencing, and prioritisation, and manage the hiring pipeline in the ATS.
• Design and run a high‑touch, always‑on engagement and nurture engine for top talent, creating content, community activities and targeted outreach together with marketing.
• Personally lead the most senior and business‑critical engineering hires, protect assessment quality, manage escalations and ensure smooth offer and acceptance processes.

Required profile

• Proven scale‑up experience hiring in high‑growth tech environments with strong standards and ambiguity.
• Deep immersion in the UK Product & Design Engineering market, with an active network and community‑building experience.
• Exec‑search craft: demonstrated ability to close low‑volume, very high‑calibre engineers through creative, non‑standard routes.
• Experience building always‑on attraction and nurture strategies that convert exceptional candidates over time.
• Track record of close partnership with technical leadership to define quality bars and calibrate assessments.
• Strong written narrative skills to translate technical stories into compelling outreach material.
• Data‑informed decision‑making using metrics to monitor funnel health and quality.