Senior Talent Acquisition Partner

Description

We're building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience.

We specialise in turning advances in sensing, AI, and communications into operational capability for the edge, where connectivity may be degraded or denied. Our work focuses on accelerating the deployment of technology, improving decision-making for frontline teams, and protecting people and critical assets in demanding environments.

Headquartered in Bristol, Rowden employs around 200 people and operates over 20,000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing facilities. We have a growing international footprint and are one of Europe’s fastest-growing engineering businesses.

The Role

Rowden is growing fast. We’re winning programmes, expanding internationally, and building out the commercial teams that will define how we scale. Finding the right sales, business development and capture talent in specialist markets, across multiple geographies, is one of the most consequential things we can do right now.

We’re looking for an experienced Talent Acquisition Partner to join our small team and deliver hiring across a number of areas within Rowden.

This is a role for someone who understands that hiring great commercial talent looks different from hiring engineers: the networks are different, the motivations are different, and the ability to assess a candidate’s commercial credibility takes a different kind of judgement. You’ll be part of a small, high-performing People and Talent team, operating as a genuine partner to the business, not a CV-forwarding service.

This role offers hybrid working with a minimum of 3 days per week on-site at our Bristol HQ.

Candidates must be eligible for SC clearance.

More information about security clearance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels

Key areas of responsibility

You'll deliver hires across a mixture of areas, including Sales/GTM, Corporate and Operations. This includes (but is not limited to) the following:

• Take full ownership of the hiring lifecycle, from briefing through to offer.
• Build and manage strong shortlists through proactive outreach and headhunting as well as inbound channel management, rather than relying on applications alone.
• Conduct structured candidate assessments that go beyond CV screening, evaluating commercial credibility, track record, cultural alignment and the specific judgement each role requires.
• Manage multiple live roles simultaneously, prioritising effectively and keeping hiring managers and candidates well-informed at every stage.

Build proactive pipelines for hard-to-fill commercial roles

• Develop warm candidate pipelines for priority areas before roles are formally raised, particularly for senior, specialist, or globally-scoped positions.
• Maintain an active network of talent across defence, deep tech, government, and adjacent markets, engaging candidates before they’re needed.
• Work closely with the Sourcing Specialist to agree priorities, share market intelligence, and ensure pipelines are ready when hiring demand lands.
• Stay close to the competitive landscape, understanding where strong talent exists, who’s moving, and what it takes to attract them to Rowden.

Act as a genuine partner to hiring managers

• Build trusted, productive relationships with hiring managers and leadership, understanding their team structures, strategic direction, and what good looks like for their roles.
• Lead structured briefing meetings that set clear expectations, define the ideal candidate profile, and agree a realistic hiring plan.
• Provide honest, data-informed counsel on market conditions, candidate availability, and compensation, including when a brief needs to flex.
• Coach hiring managers on interview technique, assessment frameworks, and candidate experience, ensuring every process reflects well on Rowden.

Support Rowden’s US and international commercial hiring

• Lean in to hiring across Rowden’s growing US footprint, navigating the nuances of sourcing, assessing and closing candidates in a different market.
• Develop fluency in US defence and technology talent markets, understanding the candidate landscape, compensation norms, and how Rowden’s proposition lands with US-based hires.
• Build relationships with US-based talent proactively, ahead of formally scoped roles, to shorten lead times as Rowden’s business scales.
• Work effectively across time zones, adapting communication and process to ensure a consistently strong experience for candidates and hiring managers regardless of location.

Key skills, experience and behaviours

We’re less interested in volume and more interested in the quality of your judgement; on candidates, on markets, and on what great hiring actually requires.

You’ll likely bring:

• Significant experience hiring across a mixture of disciplines, geographies and seniority levels. You’ve owned these searches end to end, not just supported them.
• A blend of agency and inhouse recruitment experience.
• Familiarity with defence, national security, deep tech, government, or other specialist B2B technology markets.
• A track record of proactive sourcing and headhunting for talent, not just managing inbound pipelines. You know how to find and engage candidates who aren’t looking.
• International hiring experience, ideally including the US market. You understand how talent markets differ across geographies and can navigate that confidently.
• Strong commercial acumen, you can assess a candidate’s track record critically, hold a credible conversation about their experience, and make confident recommendations to the business.
• The ability to build genuine partnerships with senior stakeholders, including when that means pushing back or delivering difficult market realities.
• Experience operating in high-growth, fast-moving environments where priorities shift and pace is non-negotiable.
• Comfort working with a high degree of autonomy: you create your own structure, manage your own pipeline, and don’t need to be chased.

What success looks like

• Critical roles are filled with the right people, in competitive timescales, without over-reliance on agencies.
• Hiring managers trust your judgement and engage you early, not when they’re already behind.
• Rowden has warm pipelines of talent before roles are formally raised, reducing time-to-hire for the positions that matter most.
• Candidates (hired and not) leave the process with a strong impression of Rowden, regardless of outcome.
• Rowden’s US hiring capability is established, with active pipelines and a growing network in place.

Why Rowden?

Rowden is building commercial teams in markets that are genuinely complex; defence technology, national security, and operational edge environments where the stakes are real. You’ll be hiring people who go on to shape how Rowden grows, not filling boxes on an org chart.

If you want to do serious commercial hiring, in a business that’s growing fast and values the people who help it do that, we’d like to hear from you.

Working at Rowden

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are!

We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.

Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.

Finally, if you feel that you don’t meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we’d still love to hear from you!

About Rowden

What matters to us?

• Our focus is on the end user. We exist to deliver the best possible outcomes for the users of our systems.
• Pace matters. The problems we solve are urgent.
• Our diverse skills and backgrounds make us better. Our team prides itself on being inclusive and multidisciplinary.
• We are radically honest. Saying what we mean, even when it isn’t easy.
• We are pragmatists. We provide realistic, focused solutions that get to the point.
• We improve continuously. We are relentless in our drive to make things better.