# Head of People

**Company:** [Ai2](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/ai2)
**Location:** Seattle, WA
**Role:** People Ops
**Salary:** $172k – $258k/yr
**Experience:** 15+ years
**Skills:** compensation and benefits, Recruiting, hr business partnership, Employee Relations, Performance Management, Organizational Design, Workforce Planning, employment law, people operations, process documentation, AI Tools, Automation, shrm, sphr, phr
**Posted:** 2026-08-07

> Leads People Operations strategy, programs, and a team of seven while partnering with technical leadership, Finance, Legal, and executives. Requires a bachelor's degree, 15+ years of progressive HR experience, and substantial people-management experience.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Lead and develop a team of seven across total rewards, recruiting, and HR business partnership.
- Set annual strategy and goals for People Operations and track progress against them.
- Partner with research and engineering leadership to ensure People programs fit technical teams' needs.
- Own organization-wide people programs, including performance management, employee relations, and engagement.
- Partner with leadership on organizational design and workforce planning.
- Ensure employment-law compliance and manage risk across the employee lifecycle.
- Build documented systems and processes to address inconsistencies and ambiguity.
- Own budget and resourcing decisions for the People function.
- Partner with Finance and Legal on compliance and infrastructure needs.
- Support executive transitions, including search processes and onboarding planning.
- Own hiring execution, from defining open roles through onboarding.
- Identify opportunities to use automation and AI tools in People workflows.

## Requirements
- Bachelor's degree.
- 15+ years of progressive HR experience.
- 5+ years managing managers or senior individual contributors, with at least 3 direct reports.
- Experience working closely with technical teams.
- Functional depth across compensation and benefits, recruiting, and HR business partnership.
- Experience with employee relations, performance management, and organizational design.
- Experience building and documenting HR processes and systems.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to collaborate across Legal, Finance, and executive leadership.
- Experience leading a team through organizational change.

## Nice-to-haves
- Experience partnering with AI research teams.
- Experience at a research institute, nonprofit, or grant-funded organization.
- Experience applying AI tools to HR workflows.
- SHRM, SPHR, or PHR certification.
- Experience at a company scaling through a leadership transition.

## Compensation
- Base salary: $172,080 - $258,120.
- Generous bonus plans are also available as part of the compensation package.

## Work Environment
- This role is expected to work from the Seattle office.
- The position requires remaining stationary for long periods, communicating and exchanging accurate information, observing details at close range, and working under deadlines.

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