Andreea Lungulescu

Many technology leaders assume their hiring function is operational, something that supports delivery, but does not define it. This is a costly misjudgement. In the context of accelerated AI adoption, hiring decisions have a direct impact on delivery speed, team resilience, and organisational adaptability. This session, led by Principal Recruiter Andreea Lungulescu, who designed and deployed the senior engineering hiring systems at Wayfair and Zalando, advised early-stage AI startups on end-to-end recruitment infrastructure, and leads a community of over 4,000 talent professionals across DACH, offers a direct briefing to CTOs and senior engineering leaders on where their current hiring systems are introducing risk and friction. Key Topics: The cost of delay introduced by unclear scorecards, vague role definitions, and untrained interview loops How organisational blind spots (including over-indexing on external hiring and under-utilising internal capability) weaken delivery capacity Using first-principles thinking to rebuild hiring loops aligned to business outcomes How to evaluate hiring through the lens of AI leverage, team design, and talent market assessment Folks will leave with a practical framework to: Assess the current maturity of their hiring systems Engage internal recruitment functions as strategic partners, not service operatives Reduce attrition risk and dependency on reactive headcount growth Prepare their engineering teams for hiring in AI-driven environments, where adaptability and delivery pace will be the dominant success metrics This is a session for leaders who understand that flawed hiring is a barrier to scale