Sarah Trout Email & Phone Number

San Francisco , California , Us

At Plaid, I’ve led initiatives that build scalable recruiting operations and drive people-focused programs, empowering Plaid to grow while delivering a high-quality employee experience.Recruiting Operations: Led key projects to enhance hiring efficiency, strengthen recruiting infrastructure, and drive data-driven insights. Highlights include:Project Management Excellence: Designed Plaid’s first project management framework for recruiting, creating a prioritization matrix, intake process, and portfolio reporting. This process, which I scaled across Recruiting, evolved into the backbone for People org project management, prioritizing high-impact initiatives with senior leaders.Talent Enablement & Process Optimization: Built a centralized resource hub, standardized processes, and provided training to increase team agility and establish a scalable recruiting infrastructure.DEIB Integration & Strategic Sourcing: Embedded DEIB across recruiting strategies and led data-driven market mapping, competitive intelligence, and sourcing efforts, ensuring inclusive and effective talent engagement.People Programs Leadership: As Program Manager for cross-functional People org initiatives, I drove impact across employee experience, L&D, job architecture, org development, and compensation. My work has created a cohesive approach to change management, and I have incorporated AI to streamline project management and enhance employee experience initiatives.Returning to Recruiting Operations in a leadership role, I oversee the full team and operational scope, continually advancing our systems and exploring AI tools to further improve recruiting capabilities.

Seattle, Wa, Us

In my role as the BRIX Global Program Manager, I led AWS’s efforts to elevate the global interview experience by setting new standards, optimizing processes, and driving cross-functional collaboration. My work centered on analyzing, assessing, and growing the interviewer and bar raiser population to uphold Amazon's high hiring bar.Efficiency & Best Practices: Conducted a deep analysis on phone screener efficiency that challenged assumptions within Talent Acquisition leadership, leading to the adoption of global best practices.Standardization Across Teams: Recruited and led a cross-functional working group to develop a unified “single source of truth” for interview standards, best practices, and policies. This group included representatives from various Amazon S-Teams and job families to ensure the standards met diverse needs and supported consistent, high-quality hiring decisions.In this role, I strengthened the foundation for scalable, effective interviewing across AWS, ensuring we maintained our commitment to quality hiring while enhancing efficiency across global teams.

Seattle, Wa, Us

As a Senior Talent Advisor in Amazon’s Best Match Hiring Program, I supported and advised executives across key business units on a centralized, AI/ML-driven recruiting process to match candidates with roles best suited to their skills and interests. My focus was on optimizing hiring strategies to support rapid scaling and meet ambitious headcount goals.Executive Talent Partnership: Consulted with 13 VPs and Directors in software engineering for HR, Finance, Legal, and Corporate Affairs, guiding them on a tailored hiring process using AI/ML matching to streamline candidate placement and meet critical business demands.Data-Driven Headcount Management: Partnered with finance to oversee top-down headcount planning for SDE2 roles (~1300 headcount), creating and adjusting strategies to optimize allocation and empower leaders to hire efficiently.Channel-Specific Sourcing Innovation: Built and led a team of 8 recruiters in launching a dedicated employee referral sourcing strategy. This program set an ambitious goal to deliver 200 SDE hires and was on track to exceed expectations with 104 offers accepted by EOY at the time of my departure.

Seattle, Wa, Us

As the Agile Sourcing Team Leader within AWS’s Professional Services Org, I built and managed a team of 14 onshore sourcers across six technical business lanes, including Security Engineering, AI/ML, and Cloud Infrastructure. My role was to develop innovative sourcing strategies and streamline processes to meet aggressive hiring targets for high-demand technical roles.Offshore Sourcing Strategy: Developed and implemented AWS’s first offshore RPO sourcing model, establishing an end-to-end process that consistently delivered warm leads to our onshore recruiting team. This approach achieved 69 hires on 106 offers within eight months, a testament to its success and scalability.Automation & Efficiency Improvements: Created an automated top-of-funnel process by integrating five different technologies, which significantly boosted lead development for sourcing recruiters. This initiative expanded beyond our team and was later adopted as a pilot program across AWS.Cross-Business Lane Impact: My sourcing strategies and operational improvements were applied across multiple business lanes, enabling AWS Professional Services to attract specialized talent efficiently and effectively.

Seattle, Wa, Us

As a Program Manager supporting HR and Recruiting Programs across multiple AWS Sales teams, I led initiatives that enhanced brand visibility, streamlined immigration processes, and supported team recognition and enablement.Social Media Strategy & Brand Expansion: Spearheaded efforts to amplify the social media presence of AWS’s fastest-growing sales team, elevating brand visibility and engagement to attract top talent.Immigration Program Management: Designed and managed immigration programs tailored for H1B holders, ensuring a seamless experience for international talent and supporting AWS’s global mobility goals.Global Employee Recognition: Led the global employee recognition program, celebrating contributions across diverse teams and fostering a culture of appreciation within AWS.Sales Enablement Programs: Developed targeted enablement programs that empowered sales teams with tools and training to drive performance and align with AWS’s growth objectives.In this role, I built and executed high-impact programs that strengthened AWS’s talent brand, supported international hiring, and drove engagement across the rapidly expanding sales organization.

Seattle, Wa, Us

In my role as a Senior Technical Recruiter and Talent Advisor, I partnered with technical and business leaders across AWS’s Security and Infrastructure Global Specialty Practice (S&I GSP) to meet ambitious hiring targets and elevate recruiting standards.High-Impact Interview Process Design: Created and implemented an innovative interview process for AWS Professional Services, enabling rapid scaling and helping exceed the yearly target of over 4,000 technical consultant hires.Sourcing Team Leadership: Led a sourcing team to its most successful year, achieving 106% of hiring goals with 113 cloud security engineers hired. This success was driven by improving candidate pipeline efficiency by 54%, significantly reducing interview time and saving thousands of hours.Standardization for Efficiency: Spearheaded efforts to standardize and calibrate the DevOps consultant role, creating a leveling guide, interview template, and coaching materials. These changes reduced phone screen-to-onsite ratios from 5.24 to 2.17 and cut average candidate interview time by 23%, contributing to a streamlined hiring process across the organization.This role solidified my expertise in technical recruitment strategy, process optimization, and sourcing efficiency, positioning AWS to attract and secure top-tier technical talent​Partnered directly with hiring managers on the job searches and headcount planning. Developed targeted search strategies, booleans and social media campaigns.

Us

The Personal Brander is a career consultancy company specializing in career coaching, resume writing and behavioral interview preparation. *Currently on hiatus due to move back into AWS HR*

Redmond, Washington, Us

Toronto, Ontario, Ca