Recruiting's newest role didn't exist 2 years ago. a16z talent engineer Dan McCarthy (Zapier) breaks down how to step into it.
LAST CALL: The Recruiting Agents Workshop with Seb Sharp, August 25 and 26. Two live build-along sessions where you build an autonomous lead agent, a placement agent, and connect your entire tech stack, plus recordings, templates, and a week of Slack access to Seb. Register here: https://the-recruiting-agents-workshop.heysummit.com/
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Dan McCarthy was a jazz musician, a New York bartender, a wine educator, and a Brooklyn CrossFit gym owner before Shopify hired him into tech recruiting at 40. Today he is a Senior Talent Engineer at Zapier and one of the founding members of the a16z Talent Engineer Fellowship. In this episode he breaks down the talent intelligence MCP he built in a month on completely free APIs, the ego build problem on LinkedIn, what agency recruiters can build this weekend to win their next client pitch, and whether the talent engineer role will even exist in five years.
CHAPTERS: 0:00 The Recruiting Agents Workshop (Aug 25 & 26)
1:20 Cold open
2:02 Atlas
3:50 Meet Dan McCarthy, a16z Talent Engineer Fellow
4:07 Has AI in recruiting actually moved the needle?
5:32 The ego build problem on LinkedIn
8:41 What is a talent engineer, actually?
10:11 Jazz, wine, and CrossFit: the 30-second life story
12:36 Inside the a16z Talent Engineer Fellowship
14:01 Entering tech at 40 without knowing what an org chart was
14:39 Imposter syndrome as an unfair advantage
17:07 A quick wine detour
18:51 What the nonlinear path actually taught him
21:31 Getting hit by the Shopify layoffs (twice laid off)
24:41 Learning to code before AI existed
27:42 The questions builders forget to ask
28:04 Building Zapier's talent intelligence MCP on free APIs
33:36 Building to learn vs building to ship
36:00 What's left for one person to build?
40:11 The trap: reinvesting saved time into more AI
42:55 Dan's own "ego build" confession
45:23 The agency playbook: free data as a BD weapon
48:05 Where the ATS goes next: all-in-one or headless
53:26 The sales engineer ratio coming to recruiting teams
56:00 Can a 3-person agency bill $5-10 million?
57:41 Will this role even exist in 5 years?
1:00:27 How to become a talent engineer: just build
1:05:44 The question I should have asked
1:07:35 Quickfire: what he changed his mind on
1:10:31 The 4 books he tells everyone to read
1:12:49 Favorite tech tools right now
1:15:09 The question nobody ever asks him
1:18:03 Where to find Dan + parting advice
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LINKS: Connect with Dan McCarthy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamdanmccarthy/
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-become-a-talent-engineer-recruitings-new-ai-role/id1547241660?i=1000783814544
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0i1PMEIypn1joAgFcAWCDR?si=w-nGQ3SyTvOq5VZmGwgOmg
Finish The Year Strong 2026 (Sept 28-Oct 5): https://recruiters-finish-the-year-strong.heysummit.com/
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