Director, People

Responsibilities

People Operations Excellence

• Drive AI-native operations across the People Team, identifying opportunities to leverage technology and fundamentally redesign workflows while maintaining the human elements of our work.
• Ensure operational excellence and compliance and continuously evolve our people processes as the business scales.
• Lead complex, cross-functional processes and partner with internal stakeholders including Legal, Finance, Tech Ops, and Quality Assurance to deliver business outcomes.
• Serve as the escalation point for complex people operations, benefits, and compensation matters.
• Manage external vendor relationships and consultant partnerships while continuously evaluating opportunities to improve quality, cost, and effectiveness.

Program Design & Strategic Execution

• Elevate and own our performance, promotion, and compensation review programs to ensure quality, consistency, and scalability as we grow.
• Own our compensation strategy and execution for Formation's unique business model, including framework design, market positioning, and equity programs.
• Lead benefits strategy, vendor selection, and plan design, ensuring our total rewards package is competitive and supports our culture and business needs.
• Anticipate future people program needs based on business priorities and organizational growth.

People Business Partnership

• Serve as a strategic People partner for designated leaders and functions.
• Develop a deep understanding of the business and build trusted relationships with leaders to anticipate business needs, identify organizational risks, and develop solutions.
• Coach managers through complex people situations while balancing employee experience, business outcomes, and long-term organizational health.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in people operations, people business partnering, total rewards, and/or HR leadership roles.
• Proven track record leveraging AI and automation to improve people operations with concrete results and a clear vision for an AI-native People Team.
• Strong operational background owning people systems, benefits, compliance, and building scalable people operations infrastructure.
• Experience designing and scaling people programs while balancing quality, consistency, and operational efficiency; successfully led change by building alignment.
• Ability to make independent, complex decisions with strong judgment, company-wide perspective, and anticipation of long-term implications.
• Strong ownership mentality and high accountability; proactively identify opportunities and drive work to completion.
• People management experience developing and elevating individuals and teams, setting a high bar for performance, and focusing on career development.
• Strong cross-functional partnership skills building trusted relationships with leaders, internal teams, and external vendors.
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, high-growth environments; thrive in ambiguity and shift between strategic thinking and hands-on execution.
• Compensation expertise is a plus (designed compensation frameworks, conducted market analyses, thought strategically about equity and total rewards).
• Experience in biotech, pharma, or other technical or regulated industries is a plus but not required.

Compensation & Benefits

Total Compensation Range: $177,500 - $232,000

Individual compensation is determined by several factors, including role scope, geographic location, and skills & experience. In addition to base salary, we offer equity, comprehensive benefits, and generous perks.