Pinewood.AI is seeking a proactive and adaptable Talent Acquisition Specialist to join our People & Culture team, supporting recruitment activity in South Africa as we establish and scale our new Development Hub. This role plays a pivotal part in driving our talent acquisition strategy, ensuring we attract and hire high-quality candidates across software development, product, business, and commercial roles. A key focus will be sourcing senior, high-calibre technical talent and supporting the strategic build-out of a 15–30 person .NET development team over the next 6–12 months.
You’ll work closely with our HR representative on the ground in South Africa to coordinate interviews, logistics, and onboarding, while acting as the primary lead for all recruitment activity in the region. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who enjoys the full recruitment lifecycle, thrives in a fast-paced environment, and is confident headhunting in competitive markets. You’ll also contribute to wider global recruitment initiatives as we continue to expand across North America, Europe, Asia and other geographies.
Duties and Responsibilities
- Partner with hiring leaders to take detailed job briefs and fully understand requirements from both a capability and cultural perspective.
- Support the strategic build-out of the new South Africa Development Hub, helping shape hiring approaches and ensuring we secure top-tier senior technical talent.
- Manage the full recruitment lifecycle from role creation to onboarding, ensuring a seamless candidate experience and strong collaboration with stakeholders.
- Act as an expert in direct sourcing and headhunting, proactively building and maintaining talent communities using a variety of attraction and search techniques.
- Utilise platforms such as Workable, LinkedIn, job boards, social media, and targeted outreach campaigns to identify and engage high-quality candidates.
- Create engaging LinkedIn posts to generate awareness and applications.
- Screen and interview candidates for both skill alignment and cultural fit.
- Coordinate interviews, booking directly into hiring leaders’ diaries and ensuring smooth scheduling.
- Work closely with the South Africa HR representative to manage interview logistics, onboarding preparation, and documentation.
- Manage offer processes, including salary discussions and contract issuance.
- Ensure a smooth transition from offer acceptance to onboarding.
- Lead or contribute to recruitment projects such as process improvements, employer branding initiatives, and diversity hiring.
- Generate and maintain recruitment reports, providing insights into market activity and key metrics.
- Provide guidance to hiring leaders on using our ATS (Workable).
- Provide weekly updates to the Head of Talent, including insights into local market challenges.
- Support the wider recruitment team with ad-hoc queries, sharing best practices and collaborating on challenging vacancies or project work.
Requirements
- Experience managing end-to-end recruitment, ideally across software development, product, business, or commercial functions.
- Strong sourcing and headhunting skills, with experience engaging passive senior talent.
- Ability to adapt recruitment strategies for new markets and evolving role types.
- Confident collaborating with stakeholders across regions and time zones.
- Excellent communication and relationship-building skills.
- Analytical mindset with the ability to interpret data and recruitment metrics.
- Proactive, resourceful, and solutions-focused, with the ability to work independently.
Key Attributes
- Inquisitive nature, with the ability to find solutions to problems and adapt recruitment strategies for new and challenging geographical areas.
- Collaborative mindset, working effectively within a team while independently managing specific recruitment projects and tasks.
- Proactive and resourceful, with a strong focus on building relationships and talent pipelines across multiple regions.
- Analytical mindset, capable of interpreting recruitment data and metrics to drive decision-making and strategy adjustments.
Why Join us?
This is a fantastic opportunity to make a direct impact on Pinewood.AI’s growth in South Africa. You’ll help shape our new Development Hub, recruit top-tier senior technical talent, and support a variety of functions across the business. If you’re passionate about recruitment and want to play a pivotal role in building an innovative global software team, Pinewood.AI offers the platform to do just that.
About us
Pinewood.AI is a technology company revolutionising the automotive industry with solutions that help retailers and vehicle manufacturers work more efficiently and boost revenue through informed decision-making. With over 30,000 users worldwide across the UK, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and plans to expand into North America in 2026, we partner with 50+ brands, including Audi, Porsche, and Kia.
Our cloud-based system, built on Microsoft technologies, provides end-to-end data visibility across the entire customer ownership journey, empowering users in sales, finance, and vehicle servicing to enhance performance. As we integrate AI into our platform, we’re creating an Expert System to unlock new opportunities for operational and commercial success. At Pinewood.AI, we call this Automotive Intelligence.
We pride ourselves on fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration, where every team member contributes to shaping the future of automotive intelligence.
