Build right. Hire right. Rebel forever.

I'm a fractional Head of Talent for Series A-C startups and defense contractors. I build recruiting infrastructure companies own forever, ATS workflows, sourcing frameworks, scorecards, pipelines; then close critical hires in under 30 days.

My path wasn't traditional: TGI Fridays → booking bands → managing tours → 14 years in recruiting. It taught me to spot talent fast, sell with conviction, and treat every search like representation. I operate like an agent, take care of both sides, protect the brand, close the deal.

Currently: Fractional Head of Talent at EarthDaily Federal (geospatial intelligence, defense). Board member at Underground Admins.

Author: Head and Heart: Winning the AI Recruiting War

richie@rebeltalentsystems.com | rebeltalentsystems.com

Richie Lampani

I got recognized at Costco yesterday.


Guy walks up, points at me, and goes "You're that recruiter."

I said "Depends. Are you hiring or mad at me for ghosting you or something?"

He said "Neither. I just see you everywhere and wanted to make sure you were real."

Then he bought a 48-pack of paper towels and left.

No follow. No handshake. No "love your content." Just a man confirming my corporeal existence between the rotisserie chickens and the tire center.

I've never felt more seen and more invisible at the same time.

This is what 50,000 LinkedIn connections gets you.

A stranger in bulk goods aisle 7 performing a wellness check.

Anyway I'm still taking clients.

Also, who would tune in for the below podcast? I'm trying to talk Shaun Hervey into starting it back up. 

Richie

Fractional Head of Talent | Series A-C Startups & Defense | Author & Talent Strategist | Former TGI Fridays Flair Champ

When the hiring manager says ‘we need someone hungry’ and the team looks like they’ve been surviving on vibes and stale granola since 2023.

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I get why people hate recruiting agencies. I’m Richie. I’ll go first.
I apologize for my part in it and for once being one of the idiot recruiters you all deal with. Candidates AND Decision Makers. 

Because the real problem with recruiting isn’t mysterious. It isn’t candidates. It isn’t even “bad actors.”

The real problem with recruiting is that there is zero barrier to entry.

Anyone can open a “firm” tomorrow.

No credentials. No licensing. No skill checks. Nothing.

Even if you get hired into an agency, the interview process isn’t about expertise for recruiters with 2 or less years experience. It’s about personality and enthusiasm.

Can you smile through rejection, handle being micromanaged, and agree to do more for less? Congratulations, you’re a recruiter now.

No wonder the industry looks the way it does.

What new recruiters actually get taught
It’s not recruiting. It’s volume mechanics.
Here’s the training plan at most shops:
-Here’s the template job description. Don’t think. Just post it.
-Here's the basics of the ATS. Not even how to search the database that exists within it.
-Here’s how to search for keywords. Don’t understand them. Just match them.
-Here’s the call quota. Hit it.
-Here’s the email quota. Hit it.
-Here’s the “submit” quota. Hit it.
AND INVARIABLY and INEVITABLY at EVERY shop I've worked at, there is a minimum of 1 meeting a month about candidate ownership that 100% will devolve into a battle of how to decide who talked to Joe that has a very basic skillset but always answers every outreach.

If I’m finding .NET developers but I don’t know what .NET is, that’s not recruiting.

That’s scavenger hunting.
Volume is the skill.
Quality is the accident.


When you hand anyone a LinkedIn seat and tell them “go find talent,” this is what happens:
-Bad outreach floods good candidates
-Bad screening wastes hiring managers’ time
-Bad job descriptions repel the people you actually want
-Bad incentives encourage speed over accuracy

Candidates think we’re clowns(and a LARGE % of the time, they're right)

Hiring managers think we’re a tax.

And agencies keep doubling down on “more activity” instead of “more skill.”

If this industry took its job seriously, recruiter would mean something:
-Understanding the tech you’re sourcing for, not just the keywords
-Writing job descriptions that attract, not repel
-Market mapping, calibration, and diagnostics with hiring teams
-Measuring retention and quality of hire, not CV volume
-Training rooted in assessment, psychology, and labor market knowledge

It’s not complicated.
It’s just not how the industry is built.

If you run a recruiting team or an agency, ask yourself:
Are you training recruiters to understand the work or just search for words?
Would you trust your own career with the people your shop places?

If the answer makes you uncomfortable, that’s the point.

Zero barrier to entry is not changing.
The bar you set inside your own shop can.

We have several finalists on this. Holding for now. 

Remote - 10-99 - IT Admin role - part time! 
Pay is DOE but targeting 50-75/hour
Role: Part-Time IT Administrator
Engagement: 1099 Contractor
Time Commitment: Part-time, flexible

Location: Remote, EST Time zone preferred, must be US Citizen living in the US. 

Overview
EarthDaily Federal is looking for a part-time IT Administrator to support our internal systems and act as the primary liaison between our internal team and our external IT and security partner.

This role sits at the center of everything technical inside the company. You will own the day-to-day IT administration work while coordinating with ISI on security, compliance, and higher-level infrastructure items.

This is a startup-style environment. Many basic IT processes are either incomplete, undocumented, or need to be cleaned up. The right person is comfortable walking into a messy system and methodically making it better.
Some people love that. Some people hate it. We want the ones who love it.

Core Responsibilities
-Serve as the primary IT point of contact for EarthDaily Federal
-Act as the liaison between internal teams and ISI
-Coordinate requests, troubleshooting, and follow-ups with our external security provider.
-Manage internal user access, permissions, onboarding, and offboarding
-Administer Microsoft 365 environment including SharePoint and Teams
-Support employee endpoint setup and basic troubleshooting
-Maintain and improve internal IT documentation and processes
-Partner with engineering leadership to support basic IT needs as required

Environment and Tools
-Microsoft 365
-SharePoint
-Teams
-Internal SaaS tooling supporting engineering and operations

Preferred Background
-Experience working in small or early-stage environments
-Comfortable operating with limited documentation and evolving processes
-Prior exposure to secure or compliance-driven environments is a plus
-Awareness of CMMC concepts is a bonus but not required
-Strong communication skills and comfort acting as a bridge between vendors and internal teams

What Success Looks Like
-Internal IT issues are triaged quickly and resolved cleanly
-ISI communication is organized, tracked, and effective
-Users know exactly where to go for IT help
-Systems become cleaner, more documented, and easier to manage
-Leadership gains visibility and confidence in the IT function

Interview
Talk to me
Talk to COO
Talk to CTO

Rock and Roll. Looking to get someone in ASAP

Notes
This is not a maintenance-only role.
This role exists to stabilize, clean up, and bring order to foundational systems that grew faster than the structure supporting them.
If you enjoy building order from chaos, this will be a great fit.
If you need everything perfectly defined on day one, it will not be.

3 fully remote roles for Underground Admins clients. 2 Engineering and 1 sales. Please share.

🚂 Production Engineers (x2)
Stop. Don't send me your DevOps resume.
Two Production Engineer roles. Fully remote. $150K-$250K base.

But here's the filter:
If your day is CI/CD pipelines and Jira tickets, this isn't it. If you've never owned a production service end-to-end, this isn't it. If your incident response is "check the runbook," this isn't it.

This is for software engineers who moved into production because they gave a damn about how their code behaved in the wild.

The work:
60-70% hands-on C# on modern .NET, building and owning services
30-40% reliability, observability, SLOs, systems design
Zero L1 support. No on-call circus. No finger-pointing at infra.
Python for tooling. PostgreSQL on AWS. Legacy migrations that don't burn the house down.

Requirements:
3-7+ years owning production systems as a software engineer
Strong C# and Python
U.S. citizen, living in the U.S.

Interview process: Two technical rounds. One alignment conversation. Done.
DM me with the nastiest incident you've ever fixed and what you changed so it never happened again.

🪖 Head of Defense Sales
$200K base. Uncapped commission. And you're building this from zero.
One of my clients needs a Head of Defense Sales to own the entire DoD go-to-market. Not manage existing accounts. Build the function.

This is a closer role, not a farmer role.

What you're walking into:
Full ownership of defense sales strategy
Pipeline you build yourself
Direct line to executive leadership
Future team-build potential when you prove it works

The work:
Identify, qualify, close new DoD logos
Build relationships with primes, integrators, and program stakeholders
Translate complex tech into mission outcomes
Shape capture plans, proposals, pricing
Carry quota. Deliver.

Non-negotiables:
Proven track record selling software into DoD
Experience closing new logos, not just renewing contracts
You understand defense procurement, budgeting, acquisition cycles
Can build pipeline independently in a fast-moving environment

Preferred:
Active or recently lapsed clearance
Background in data, analytics, cyber, AI, or privacy tech
Startup or growth-stage experience
Network in Army, SOCOM, Space Force, Navy, Air Force, or COCOMs

Location: US based. East Coast or DMV preferred. Huntsville, Denver, Colorado Springs, Tampa, San Diego also work.

If you've opened doors and closed complex software deals in defense, DM me.

Underground Admins clients - NOT EDF. If you're interested hit up myself or Amy and we'll set you up with a screen.

Share this with all of the gritty, grindy, grimy hunters: You've sold into DoD. You know what it takes.

You don't live in SAM(dot)gov waiting for RFPs. You go find the opportunities before they exist. You build relationships that turn into requirements. You're in the room shaping the conversation, not responding to it.

The long cycles. The relationship game. The "no" that turns into "not yet" that turns into a $2M contract 18 months later.

You've carried a bag. Built pipeline from nothing. Sat through capability briefs that went nowhere and turned cold calls into warm intros into real money.

EarthDaily Federal is building something. Geospatial intelligence. AI-powered analytics. Real mission impact for Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force.

We've got the tech. We've got the past performance. Now we need hunters who want to eat.

Remote. Competitive comp. No bureaucracy. Small team, big upside.
If you're tired of selling software to people who don't care, come sell something that matters to people who do.

I don't have a range on this yet but honestly, there's a solid base and you probably are more interested in the commission checks anyway. Bene's and remote.

DM me. Let's eat.

This is Chuck. Chuck charges 25% to send you ‘top-tier talent your internal team can’t find.’ 

Because apparently his LinkedIn recruiter seat works differently than yours 

Or his job posts are better because he changed your company name out for “our client” so candidates wouldn’t just apply direct. 


Stop renting Chucks. Hit me up about a better way.

Once you see it as a demonstration and not an audition, everything changes.

You’re not begging for approval.  

You’re showing how you actually work.

Candidates: You’re not “on stage.” You’re giving a preview. And finding alignment. 

Companies: You’re not “judging talent.”  Or “selling an opportunity”. You’re showing what it feels like to be on the inside. And finding fit.

The "trust your gut?" poll results are all in here. How people treat red flags in interviews.

When you've taken a job you already had doubts about, when did the gut feeling hit that it wasn't going to work out? I ran a poll. 442 people answered

Open article: The gut knew. You overruled it. by Richie Lampani • 3 min read

REMOTE - Production Engineer/SWE/SRE opening through Underground Administration Staffing and Recruiting! Share this please

6 month contract to hire - 160-200k+ DOE plus bene's and extras

Global SaaS platform. Zero bureaucracy. Actual engineering work, not ticket triage.

I am looking for someone who can write real backend code and also own reliability end to end.

 If you are a script-only SRE, this is not the role.

 If you are a heads-down SWE who avoids production, also not the role.
I need the rare breed who lives in the middle.

The Work:
 • Write production-grade backend code in Python, Go, or Java(plus C# chops)
 • Support modernization and migration of legacy .NET services into AWS
 • Build internal tools, APIs, and automation
 • Tune Postgres and improve service performance
 • Deploy, monitor, troubleshoot, improve
 • Own services independently with minimal supervision

Bonus Points:
 • Kubernetes experience
 • Rust exposure or willingness to learn
 • Strong observability stack experience with Datadog, Dynatrace, or New Relic

Requirements:
 • Must be a US Citizen
 • Must be physically located in the US
 • No visas or sponsorship
 • Contract to hire
 • Fully remote

Interview Process (fast and simple):
Engineering Manager
Peer interview
Engineering Manager again for final talk and offer

No marathon interview loops. No whiteboard theater. No pointless homework.

If you can build, ship, deploy, break, fix, and improve a service, you will get through this quickly.

If this sounds like you, or you know the complete STUD who can do both SWE and SRE at a high level, let's talk. 

Also have some fun stuff coming up at EDF and Rebel. 

Feels like motion. Let's get people hired.

Aidan Brannigan

Digital Content

I create content viewed 300M times/year, driving 7 figures in revenue, but my parents still think I'm unemployed.

I’m the Founder of No Boring Brands, the content agency behind the highest performing brands on socials.

We're generating 100s of millions of organic views for our clients. 

Also...

- I built the largest marketing meme page on IG in less than 2 years
- I lost $500k in crypto when I was 20 
- I've been featured in WSJ and AdAge
- I lost a spam eating contest to Joey Chestnut in front of 14,000 people 
- I've run meme campaigns for a $100B+ company
- I spoke at SXSW about memes
- I'm currently trying to gaslight myself onto Under Armour's board of advisors
- I own a network of work meme pages on IG with a following of 130,000 doing 15,000,000 views/month

Creator

I do a bunch of fun stuff

The smartest person on the planet is not Elon Musk.

It’s whoever uploaded those 10 hour long fireplace videos on YouTube.

That passive income has to be insane.

I Make Memes for a Living | Founder & CEO @ No Boring Brands | The Agency Solving Organic Social for Niche Brands

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

I’m hiring 3 full-time (W2, not 1099) in-person (Baltimore) creator roles in the next 45 days to be a part of No Boring Brands.

Full job posting for each role is going live in ~7 days.

Do with this information what you will…


✉️ aidan@noboringbrands.co

I chose an unorthodox route after college.

I didn’t take a job in corporate, instead I moved to Austin and worked at a startup.

After a year living there I moved to Baltimore to go full time on my business, No Boring Brands.

And I get asked a lot about measuring success.

Unlike a lot of other people, I don’t measure success in dollars.

And that’s because I have no money. 

#entrepreneurial

I Make Memes for a Living | Founder & CEO @ No Boring Brands | The Agency Behind the Highest Performing Brands on Social

Am I jealous of people my age with corporate jobs?

No.

2 of my paychecks equal one of theirs. Do the math on that.

I’m doing just fine.

Noboringbrands.co

I just turned 25. That’s surreal to say out loud.

And I felt like giving back today. I wanted to provide some value.

So in honor of my 25th birthday, here are 25 things

when someone on your team tells you they can't come into work because of snow (they work remotely)

noboringbrands.co

People talk a lot of crap on LinkedIn's notifications.

But bro, are you kidding me Instagram? 

Thank you for letting me know that itsjesslyon and 60,540 others liked my post.

Much wow, very valuable.

This world is sick.

Baltimore got 6 inches of snow and 2 inches of ice this weekend. It hasn't been above 30 degrees.

And some a**hole left this little guy outside overnight.

I'm done with people.

To help the little guy out, visit noboringbrands.co

I’m 25 and building long term wealth.

Why?

Great question. It’s not what you’d think.

It’s because short term I’m absolutely screwed. 🔥

#enterpreneur #rich

I’m a little disappointed in my ability to close.

We had 3 brands interested in working with us at SXSW.

I felt our Offer was rock solid:

Brand pays us $10k. And the only requirement is that there are no requirements. Let us cook.

And none of them pulled the trigger.

Mistake.

The amount of attention they would’ve gotten…

Channels totaling 160,000 followers, doing 20M views/month across LI, IG, and TikTok.

We’re going to be in a content house for 7 days with 5 other creators whose names you absolutely know.

We’re going to have a videographer with us for 3 days.

And most importantly, you’re going to have me in the content.

Last year at SXSW I belly flopped into a CLOSED DOWN pool for content with Sprout Social.

Last year at SXSW I snuck into TWO YouTuber meet ups. One with AJ Eckstein 🧩 Eckstein, one with Joshua Smith.

Last year I walked 20,000 steps/day, walked into every single event whether I had a pass or not.

And I’m going to do it again this year, documenting everything. Who wants their logo to be a part of it all?

$10k. Oh and the only requirement is that there are no requirements. Let us cook.

Outfit of the day.

So eager to provide some value to the shareholders.

New challenge for myself the rest of the week:

Only using the "suggested reply" option in Gmail.

This is going to ruin relationships.

"Hey Aidan, let's touch base next week. I have a funeral to attend to on Thursday that is bogging me down for the week."

"No worries – we can put the "fun" in funeral on our catch up next week David."

three things:

1) just booked my flight to Austin for SXSW in March
2) i am looking for a brand to pay me $10,000 with zero creative restrictions and zero brief to get them a boatload of content while at SXSW

serious inquiries only

Sharks, I am still seeking a $10k investment…

From a brand who wants me to get them content while attending SXSW.

I only have 2 requirements, you wire me $10k and the other is that there are no requirements. Just let me cook.

3 interested so far 👀

sometimes i just be forgetting shit

like that was important, why did i forget it

12 hours to respond is a skill issue.

Speed isn’t a nice-to-have in GTM.

This is why teams use Clay 👇

• Route inbound the second it hits
• Enrich leads instantly
• Trigger outbound before the prospect forgets why they filled out the form
• Build GTM workflows that don’t rely on Jacob’s cortisol levels

#claypartner

I mean this with full offense to Utah, 

I am seeing substantially too much content about Utah on my Linkedin timeline

#whatisutah

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