Amanda Oliveira
SentinelOne
“Recruiting isn't just a function. It's a responsibility. Great companies are built by people, and recruiting is where it all begins.”
Amanda Oliveira has been named to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, the annual award recognizing up to 100 leaders in each category of talent acquisition. Honorees are nominated by peers or found by committees that look for excellent work wherever it happens, then chosen for the depth of their craft and their impact on hiring. This is Amanda's story.
Amanda Oliveira's path into talent acquisition began somewhere few would guess: the film industry. She had set out to work in casting, and it was there she realized that what energized her was not entertainment but people, understanding their strengths, their potential, and the places they could thrive. When an internship opened at a technical recruiting agency, she took a chance on a new direction, one that joined her love of storytelling with a lifelong interest in technology, inspired by growing up around software development.
That decision became the foundation of a career spanning startups, hypergrowth companies, and global enterprise. After several years in agency recruiting, Amanda was recruited to OneTrust at a pivotal moment in the company's growth, joining when the organization was still under 50 employees and becoming one of the earliest members of the talent team. There she helped build the recruiting function from the ground up, supporting hires across technical, enterprise sales, and international markets.
As OneTrust scaled, so did her impact. Amanda went on to lead global university recruiting, hiring hundreds of graduates annually across the U.S., U.K., and India, while simultaneously supporting senior technical hiring. Over time her remit evolved into recruiting enablement and eventually into recruiting operations, where she built training programs, optimized systems, and helped design the infrastructure that carried the company through rapid global growth.
Today Amanda leads Recruiting Operations at SentinelOne, where she continues to shape how talent teams operate at scale. Drawn to companies with meaningful missions, she sees privacy and cybersecurity as natural extensions of the work she began at OneTrust: building organizations that protect people through technology.
A Recruiter at Heart
Although she now leads operations, Amanda still considers herself a recruiter at heart, and the mission that energizes her has not changed since her agency days: connecting people to opportunity. Whether she is helping a friend prepare for interviews or advising candidates through a difficult career decision, she treats recruiting as deeply personal work. She has seen firsthand how the right role can change someone's life, and that sense of impact continues to drive her.
It also shapes how she builds. Even in operations, Amanda brings a recruiter's mindset, ensuring that every system, process, and tool ultimately serves the candidate and the hiring team rather than the org chart. For her, recruiting isn't just a function. It's a responsibility. Great companies are built by people, and recruiting is where it all begins.
The Next Inflection Point
Amanda believes the profession is standing at the edge of another major transformation, one driven by automation, AI, and shifting expectations around work itself. Having already lived through the first wave of recruiting automation in the late 2010s, she reads today's AI evolution as the next inflection point rather than a passing trend.
Her challenge to talent leaders is to think past incremental improvement and ask the bigger questions. How will technology reshape not just workflows, but the psychology of work? How will future generations want to engage with recruiters, if they want to at all? And what should talent teams be doing today to prepare for that shift?
Rather than resisting the change, Amanda advocates for scenario planning. Long-term plans still matter, she argues, but flexibility matters more. In a world where technology evolves faster than three-year roadmaps, leaders have to be ready to pivot, building systems that can adapt as hiring, candidate behavior, and organizational needs keep moving.
Amanda's Advice for 2026
Her guidance for the year ahead is rooted in adaptability and strategic foresight, encouraging talent leaders to embrace innovation while staying grounded in the human purpose of the work. The advice itself is simple but powerful: plan intentionally, but never rigidly. Have a Plan A, and always be ready for Plan B. Recruiting operations, in her view, has to remain dynamic, constantly rethinking how people, process, and technology intersect.
Above all, Amanda believes recruiting should never lose its human core. Tools will change and workflows will evolve, but the mission stays the same: helping people find meaningful work, and helping companies build the teams that define their success. That clarity of purpose, combined with her ability to scale systems, lead through change, and keep people at the center, is what defines her approach to modern talent operations.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Amanda. We are honored to welcome Amanda Oliveira to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Amanda. Welcome to the Talent 100.
About the Talent 100
The Talent 100 is an annual list spotlighting the leaders who push HR and talent acquisition forward, organized by Noon AI. Honorees are selected through peer nominations and independent selection committees. Selection is entirely merit-based, with no fees or pay-to-play requirements.
