Founding Talent Lead (m/f/x) at Cortea
Cortea is hiring a Founding Talent Lead (m/f/x) in Berlin, Germany. On-site.
About Cortea
Cortea provides purpose-built AI agents for professional audit firms. Its agents automate evidence testing, financial validation, and compliance checks, aligned with auditing standards such as ISA (UK) and FRC requirements. The company's Audit Quality Agents are designed to help audit firms use AI with greater trust, consistency, and professional oversight, supporting risk analysis, audit planning, and disclosure compliance.
Founding Talent Lead (m/f/x) job description
About Cortea
We’re Cortea, a Berlin startup transforming audits with AI. Manual, document-heavy audits waste expert time while demand keeps rising. Our AI-powered software and specialized AI agents remove the repetitive work so auditors can focus on judgment.
Backed by top-tier VCs with >15m funding, with a working product and paying customers, we’re rapidly scaling.
We value first-principles thinking, speed, trust, and kindness. We build side by side in our Berlin office.
The Role
You build talent foundations. You’ll design a process, that bring in exceptional talent across Tech and Non-Tech, and build a culture we’re proud of.
What you’ll do
Own the Talent end to end: job design → scope → JD → sourcing → structured interviews → offer → close
Build a Talent Engine: attract great people proactively; both inbound and outbound
Raise the hiring bar: scorecards, trained interviewers, consistent candidate experience
Shape our brand for Tech/AI talent with content, events, and a strong referral loop
Be culture-positive: partner with founders on rituals, onboarding handover, and feedback loops
You’ll be great at this if you
Have 5+ years of TA in a fast environment (startup/scale-up or agency)
Have hired top talent before and know the difference in how to assess them
Communicate clearly, leverage our founding team, and make data driven decisions fast
Can show early-stage track record you’re proud of
Think in systems and improve with data; bonus if you’ve built employer branding for engineers/AI
How we work
We value kindness + candor + execution, speed with care, and strong ownership
We’re fully in-office in Berlin because we like building side by side
We hire with structured interviews and clear scorecards to reduce bias
Non-linear paths welcome. Career breaks welcome. If you’re unsure, apply.
What we offer
High impact from day one and a path to Head of Talent/People as we grow
Competitive salary + meaningful equity (range shared on the first call)
In-office energy. shared lunches, whiteboard time, fast decisions, real teamwork
Uncapped growth. Budget for tools, learning, and events you choose
Interview process
Intro Call (25 min) with Liza
Expert interview (45 min): with Valentin (Co-Founder) - deep dive into: sourcing strategy, process design, quality in decisions)
Cultural interview (45 min): with Philipp (Co-Founder) - collaboration, judgment, and culture add
On-site day (Berlin): meet the team and work on a real life assignment
