Katarzyna Ulok

Building a scalable solution for technical recruitment and executive search, focused on AI and deep tech teams.

Promoted to Head of HR via the company’s fastest-ever promotion track. This was achieved by headhunting 4 elite Rendering Engineers in just two summer months (historically a "dead" season). The exceptional caliber of these hires eliminated the need for a 5th vacancy, delivering immediate OpEx savings. Subsequently transitioned from Talent Acquisition to lead Change Management. Key Responsibilities & Achievements: ⚫︎ People Leadership: Designed and executed a people strategy focused on cross-country collaboration (PL/UK) and organizational scalability for future funding rounds. ⚫︎ Full-Cycle Talent Acquisition: Led recruitment for high-stakes R&D, Data Science, and Sales roles, aligning headcount with long-term business objectives. ⚫︎ HR Infrastructure: Established foundational policies and systems for a hybrid, multi-country workforce, ensuring 100% operational and legal compliance (PL/UK). ⚫︎ Performance Culture: Scaled a high-performance, feedback-driven environment through streamlined onboarding and leadership development initiatives. ⚫︎ Change Management: Orchestrated complex contract terminations. Leveraged real-time expertise in PL/UK employment law to minimize legal exposure. ⚫︎ Strategic Cost Avoidance: Successfully negotiated mutual separation agreements. Operational budget optimization resulted in zero legal disputes.

● Delivered hyper-growth results hiring 4 niche Rendering Engineers during a phase of rapid organizational transformation. In just two months, I filled the most urgent technical positions. My most significant achievement in this role was hiring four Rendering Engineers on-site in Warsaw. Despite a very niche position, I gathered 67 applications, and we selected the top four candidates. My responsibilities: ● Talent Acquisition: Lead end-to-end recruitment processes for the R&D department, sourcing and attracting top-tier candidates in artificial intelligence and software development. ● Recruitment Tools Planning: Plan, select, and implement effective recruitment tools and platforms to streamline sourcing, candidate tracking, and evaluation. Continuously assess and optimize recruitment technologies to support scalable and data-driven hiring processes. ● Onboarding Excellence: Design and implement onboarding programs to facilitate seamless integration of new hires into the organization. Work closely with HR and team leaders to ensure a positive and engaging onboarding experience. ● Candidate Experience: Champion a positive and respectful candidate experience, ensuring timely communication and feedback throughout the recruitment process. Uphold our commitment to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all candidates. ● Market Insight: Stay informed about industry trends, market dynamics, and talent landscapes to advise on recruitment best practices and maintain a competitive edge in attracting top talent. ● Employer branding: Key role in enhancing our employer brand, ensuring we attract and retain top talent, and actively promoting our company culture, values, and employee benefits across various platforms.

- Improved the candidate pipeline for startups by 50% by implementing ATS and sourcing automation tools, resulting in more applications, faster hiring, and reduced time to fill. Implemented unbiased screening techniques, resulting in a 20% increase in diverse hires and improved company culture. - Building and maintaining the talent pool using different sourcing tools, boolean search, and social networks to fill clients' hiring needs. - Being responsible for tracking candidates during the whole recruitment process. - Building and maintaining relationships with sourced candidates. - Responsible for the onboarding process of new hires

Following the acquisition of ITCraftship, I took over the global recruitment strategy to scale Nursa's engineering capacity effectively from early-stage Seed/Series A to a massive Series B funding round. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: ● Hyper-Growth Scaling: Built and executed the recruitment engine that hired 100+ engineers in 12 months (300% headcount growth), directly enabling the launch of the core platform required for Series B investors. ● Post-Acquisition Integration: Successfully aligned recruitment processes between the acquired European entity and the US headquarters, creating a unified, scalable global strategy. ● Infrastructure for Scale: Designed the entire talent acquisition infrastructure from scratch (ATS, scorecards, structured interviews), reducing time-to-hire and ensuring consistency. CORE RESPONSIBILITIES: ● Strategic Partnership: Collaborating directly with the CTO to align hiring with the Product roadmap and business milestones. ● Operations & Budget: Implementing data-driven metrics to monitor funnel efficiency and optimize budget spend (CAC/Cost-per-Hire). ● Global Sourcing: Hands-on closing of critical senior engineering roles to support the US expansion.

In 2022 only, I led our recruitment team in hiring 100 engineers and tech staff across Europe and Latin America for US based roles. Sourcing and attracting candidates by using databases, social media, etc. Conducting interviews and filtering candidates for open positions. Preparing recruitment materials and posting jobs to appropriate job boards/newspapers/colleges etc. Screening candidates' resumes and job applications. Conducting interviews.

Testing MVP products and APIs in a fast-paced, agile startup environment. Responsibilities included writing user stories and acceptance criteria for new features, creating detailed bug reports, doing regression testing. I'm also supporting QA & Development hiring processes.

I am helping with the product development of Nixa.io by handling the QA process helping with research and user testing. I also provided recruitment support to find the best tech talent to enlist on our platform.

Working side by side with development and business partners to determine optimal test coverage and ensure high quality software is delivered to our customers. Acting as lead on the creation, maintenance and execution of test scripts, oversight of execution and defect management and other specialty testing activities in the areas of manual and automation testing, test environments, data conditioning and application specialties specific to Mobile.

Responsible for ensuring a product meets the established standards of quality including reliability, usability and performance. Testing, tuning and debugging the product and suggesting refinements that ensure its quality and usability.

Conducting market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends. Brainstorming and developing ideas for creative marketing campaigns. Assisting in outbound or inbound marketing activities by demonstrating expertise in various areas (content development and optimization, advertising, events planning etc.)