OSCAR HARKER
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Oscar Harker
Senior Talent Partner

Trusted by Meta, GitHub and scaling businesses to solve difficult hiring problems

Nine years in recruitment, including stints at Meta & GitHub as a top performer. Today I'm a Senior Talent Partner helping scale one of the UK's fastest-growing digital health tech companies — hiring department heads, engineering leaders and C-suite through to mid-level specialists, and shaping the hiring strategy behind it.

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9
Years in recruitment
~4
Years at Meta & GitHub
Top performer in both
#1
GitHub company record
Most sourced hires in a single quarter
1 month
To 2 Lead Engineer hires at Meta Reality Labs
where a first hire typically takes 6–12 months
Meta logoMeta · Technical Sourcer GitHub logoGitHub · Talent Strategist Wargaming logoWargaming · Tech Recruiter ProblemShared logoProblemShared · Senior Recruiter

Where I've recruited —
from big tech to healthcare.

Trusted by
Meta Meta
GitHub GitHub
Wargaming Wargaming
ForgeRock ForgeRock
ProblemShared ProblemShared
About

Nine years, and every side of recruitment.

I started out agency-side, running full-cycle searches across engineering and design. From there I moved to an agency specialising in embedded recruitment — first embedded at ForgeRock, then almost three years inside GitHub as a member of their team, where I was a consistent top performer.

It was the work I did at GitHub that got me headhunted by Meta, where I spent nearly a year and a half as a technical sourcer — and became a top performer there too. Two of the most demanding hiring environments in tech, and I delivered in both.

After Meta I joined an executive search team working leadership and C-suite mandates, then moved back in-house to Wargaming — a role that combined two of my passions, recruitment and gaming — where I spent over two years as a technical recruiter. In January 2026 I joined ProblemShared as a Senior Talent Acquisition Partner.

Agency, embedded, in-house, executive search. Sourcing and full cycle. I've seen how hiring works — and how it breaks — from every seat at the table.

What I do

Hiring from mid-level to C-suite

Engineering, product, design and operations roles across tech and gaming — from mid-level individual contributors through to Heads of Department, Heads of Engineering, Technical Directors and C-suite.

Hiring strategy & stakeholder partnership

Intake and hiring syncs with Directors and C-suite, market data using the likes of LinkedIn Talent Insights, interview design coaching — and repeatedly rebuilding strained TA/hiring-team relationships.

Technical sourcing & headhunting

Creative, multi-channel sourcing beyond LinkedIn — GitHub, ArtStation, X-ray search, HireEZ, Entelo.

Full-cycle ownership & candidate experience

Intake to offer, with prep calls, fast feedback and honest updates — the process candidates remember and recommend, offer or not.

What I believe
01

We are the face of the company.

Most candidates I reach out to have never interacted with the business before. That first message, that first call — to them, that is the company. Strong candidates are often in multiple processes at once, and the one thing you fully control is the experience you give them. It should reflect the culture and the standard of the place you're hiring for. I treat candidate experience as the job, not the admin around it.

02

Success starts before the intake meeting.

Recruiters are meant to be the experts in the markets we hire into. So I do the work before the kick-off call — market data, a read on the existing team, a plan for getting world-class talent to the top of the funnel. That preparation doesn't replace asking questions; it makes them sharper ones. I come out of those conversations with the real must-haves, what's gone wrong hiring this profile before, and an interview process I've helped shape — and then ultimately deliver, keeping the hiring team updated every step of the way. That's how trust is built, and how I've repaired hiring team and TA relationships that had broken down.

03

Sourcing is a puzzle.

Sourcing is the part I genuinely love. A niche role is a puzzle, and nothing beats the moment a search finally clicks and exactly the right people start appearing. I don't send bulk outreach. A first message is an opportunity you only get once — spending it on a template is the easiest mistake in recruitment to make, and the most expensive.

Career

Experience

Six roles, one thread: building pipelines for hard-to-fill, high-priority hires — and the stakeholder trust to close them.

01
Senior Recruiter ProblemShared logoProblemShared Current Jan 2026 — Present

Leading recruitment at one of health tech's biggest scale-ups — partnering with founders and department leads on hiring strategy, headcount planning and senior hires, and bringing the standards I learned at Meta and GitHub into a fast-moving healthcare product environment.

02
Tech Recruiter Wargaming logoWargaming Oct 2023 — Dec 2025

Full-cycle recruiter in a two-person UK team, running multiple high-priority roles at once.

  • Led weekly hiring syncs and intake meetings with Studio & Development Directors, using LinkedIn Talent Insights to bring a consultative approach to hiring decisions.
  • Built and delivered a "GitHub Sourcing" training programme to the Global TA team.
  • Represented Wargaming at Develop Brighton, one of the UK's largest gaming industry conferences.

03
Executive Talent Partner A8Acelr8 Mar 2023 — Oct 2023

Executive search across European and North American Tech and Operations markets, owning the process end to end — from business development and kick-off through to post-hire check-ins.

  • Delivered C-suite and leadership hires, including a COO for a Honda-backed startup, alongside Heads of Department and Heads of Engineering.
  • Led weekly hiring syncs and intake meetings directly with Directors and C-suite leaders, bringing market data and a consultative approach.
  • Acted as a coach to hiring managers and business leaders — designing full interview plans around key requirements and advising on best practice.

04
Technical Sourcer Meta logoMeta Career highlight Jan 2022 — Feb 2023

Meta is one of the most competitive hiring environments in tech, and I performed at the top of it twice over. I joined the ITA Flex Sourcing Team, which flexes onto the pipelines that are either behind on their goals or too business-critical to miss them.

  • Top performer on the CoreSWE pipeline — sourcing Backend & Fullstack Engineers at Tech Lead and Tech Director level for Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Landed my first hire within 2 months of joining the pipeline.
  • Selected into a team of top performers. On the back of consistent, strong performance I was chosen to flex onto Meta Reality Labs — the org's most critical and specialist hiring pipeline, working on Metaverse projects overseen by Mark Zuckerberg himself. Despite being surrounded by exceptional technical sourcers, I was a top performer in that team as well, landing 2 specialist Lead Software Engineers within a month — against an expected ramp-up of 6–12 months to a first hire, given how niche and specialist the pipeline is.
  • Held the highest pass-through rates from pre-screen to first interview in the Reality Labs team, and a 100% first-to-final interview pass-through rate in the closing hiring sprint (IC6 Gameplay & Graphics/Rendering Engineers).
  • Won a Long-Term Impact award at Meta's Talent All Hands in June 2022.
  • Appointed Employee Outreach Principal for the ITA organisation — setting the strategy and individual goals for Employee Outreach across the org.
  • Built a "GitHub Sourcing" training programme from scratch and delivered it to 4 internal teams, including the entire Software Engineering Recruitment team (measured impact below).
  • Led weekly inclusive diversity sourcing sessions — running my first solo just 8 weeks in, driving 40% of top-of-funnel to diverse-tagged candidates.

05
Talent Strategist GitHub logoGitHub (via Recoded Recruitment) Career highlight Jul 2019 — Jan 2022

2.5 years embedded at GitHub — the chapter that shaped how I recruit today. Sourced high-profile Tech and Non-Tech talent across APAC, EMEA and North America via LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub itself, and Greenhouse ATS, owning the full candidate journey from first message to hand-off.

  • Set GitHub's record for the most sourced hires within a single quarter.
  • Built and delivered a diversity sourcing presentation to GitHub's Talent Acquisition team and 60+ external guests.
  • Consistent Talent Strategist team top performer throughout the engagement.
  • Team subject-matter expert on the GitHub product and internal documentation; led onboarding for new Talent Strategists.
  • Conducted Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging interviews at final-stage.
  • Represented GitHub at Lesbians Who Tech, hosted at Facebook's London HQ.

06
Talent Partner ForgeRock logoForgeRock (via Recoded Recruitment) Jun 2019 — Jul 2019

Short embedded stint sourcing passive Site Reliability Engineers for this Identity & Access Management software company, ahead of moving onto the GitHub account.

  • Made 4 sourced hires in a 2-month period — an immediate impact before transitioning to GitHub.

07
Technical & Creative Recruitment Specialist BDBlock Digital Talent Mar 2018 — Jun 2019

Full lifecycle 360 recruitment across UX/UI, Java and PHP, working with hiring managers and candidates across Europe and South America — where it all started.

Track record

Achievements

A few numbers that back up the story.

GITHUB

Record-setting quarter

Set GitHub's record for the highest number of sourced hires within a single quarter.

META · REALITY LABS

Did in 1 month what takes most 6–12

Hired 2 specialist Lead Software Engineers in my first month on Meta's Reality Labs pipeline — one of the org's most niche, specialist pipelines, where a new sourcer's first hire typically takes 6–12 months.

META

100% pass-through rate

First interview to final interview, on a Senior Gameplay & Graphics/Rendering Engineer pipeline (IC6 level).

GITHUB

60+ person sourcing talk

Designed and delivered a diversity sourcing presentation to GitHub's Talent Acquisition team and external guests.

META · JUN 2022

Long-Term Impact award

Recognised at Meta's Talent All Hands for work with a lasting effect beyond a single hiring quarter.

META

Employee Outreach Principal

Set strategy and individual goals for Employee Outreach across the ITA organisation.

Meta "GitHub Sourcing" training — measured impact

Averages out of 10 across 4 teams — including the full Software Engineering Recruitment team — before and after the session I built and delivered.

Understanding the purpose of GitHub6.1 → 9.4
Comfort sourcing using GitHub4.2 → 8.5
Spotting positive signals on a profile4.8 → 9.2
Pre-training average Post-training average
In their words

Testimonials

Direct feedback from managers, colleagues and candidates at Meta and GitHub.

"

Oscar has been a pleasure to have flexing to the SpecSWE team — he pivoted to the AR/VR pipeline and has done an amazing job since doing so. Oscar asks fantastic questions; he has been very humble in the way he has approached learning the pipeline, and he has applied himself to a different type of recruiting to what he has done at Meta. Oscar has been very consistent, hitting his outreach and screen target week on week. Keep doing what you're doing, Sir — fantastic job, and I'm lucky to be working with you.

Director, Specialist Software Engineer RecruitmentMeta
"

Oscar has shown amazing drive and initiative with everything he has worked on — whether that includes smashing his calibration period and landing an offer just over 3 months into his role, or diving into diversity sourcing efforts by running his first session alone after only being in the role 8 weeks and making a huge impact on Top of Funnel numbers. He has impressed me with everything he does. We are lucky to have him on our team.

ITA Flex Sourcing Team LeadMeta
"

As a hiring manager, I have had the pleasure of working with Oscar for a couple of years. He quickly became my go-to person for all things talent acquisition. Oscar always quickly got to grips with the roles he worked on for me, no matter how complex the job description — I could trust him fully to come up with top quality candidates, and I rarely rejected candidates that he put forward. He's professional, energetic, smart and consistently friendly, no matter how much pressure he is under.

Kai Hilton-JonesVP Field Services – International, GitHub
Beyond work

Off the clock

31 years old, still figuring out how the next pair fits in the collection.

Personal file O. HARKER — AGE 31
Boxing

Ringside regular

Rarely misses a big fight card — as invested in the build-up and the story behind a matchup as the fight itself.

Sneakers

Collector, borderline addict

A rotation that's grown well past "hobby." Always tracking the next release.

Fashion

Style as a side interest

Into fashion the same way he's into sourcing — always looking for what's next.