Head of People

TL;DR

Head of People: Overseeing recruiting, HR, and events while scaling people systems for an organization growing to twice its current size with an accent on building scalable hiring infrastructure, onboarding, and compliance. Focus on managing a People team, owning hiring funnel metrics, and personally running key hiring rounds under pressure.

Location: Fully remote with an option to work from the Berkeley, California office if based in the Bay Area; requires at least 4 hours of overlap with PST working times.

Salary: $145,000–$193,000 USD annually (outside the Bay Area) or $181,000–$241,000 USD annually (Bay Area office), depending on seniority and prior experience.

Company

hirify.global is a research institute producing empirical research and public data on the trajectory of AI.

What you will do

• Manage and guide the People team (recruiting, HR/people operations, and events) and scale capacity with contractors or permanent headcount.
• Own and improve the end-to-end hiring system, including retrospectives, restructuring rounds that stall, and ensuring a strong candidate experience.
• Support headcount planning with the COO by turning growth plans into hiring plans and flagging schedule or sequencing risks early.
• Own HR systems and staff support: onboarding, performance review cycles, benefits/payroll/HR providers, handbook and internal policies, and culture practices as the organization scales.
• Own compliance, contracts, and visa processes across jurisdictions, including employment compliance and visa sponsorship escalations.
• Oversee the events function and scale it with repeatable processes as the events calendar grows.

Requirements

• 7+ years of operations leadership experience across recruiting and people operations.
• Experience scaling a people or recruiting function through significant headcount growth.
• Experience managing people and building high-performance teams, including developing both individual contributors and managers.
• Experience owning in-house searches end-to-end, ideally for technical research or academic roles, including recruiting for hard-to-fill positions.
• Experience building hiring infrastructure and/or onboarding, performance management systems, and/or international employment via PEO/EOR.
• Strong judgment for sensitive personnel matters and comfort with funnel data and honest reporting.

Nice to have

• Experience with Lever or a similar ATS.
• Experience running or overseeing events.
• Experience with employment visa processes.
• Experience building culture in a remote/hybrid, multi-country organization.
• Existing network in the AI safety, AI policy, or technical AI community.

Culture & Benefits

• Fully remote role with optional access to Berkeley, California office facilities for Bay Area-based candidates.
• Health insurance program with supplemental benefits, life insurance, and a 3% 401K match.
• Generous paid time off: protected 30 days PTO/year, unlimited personal and sick leave, and 4 months paid parental leave for permanent staff with 12+ months tenure.
• Flexible expense policy for equipment, productivity tools, and learning/development, including unlimited spending on AI tools subject to regulations and manager approval.
• Paid work trips including 3 staff retreats per year and relevant conferences.

Hiring process

• Application review in English; professional-level English proficiency required.
• Interviews focused on recruiting/people systems ownership, scaling experience, and judgment on sensitive personnel matters.
• Assessment of ability to manage the People team and run key hiring rounds during crunch time.