Founding Senior HR Generalist / People Operations Lead

Location: San Francisco, CA (Dogpatch) — in-person, 5 days per week
Employment Type: Full-Time
Experience: 4 - 6 Years
Salary: $160,000 - $185,000 + competitive equity
Visa Sponsorship: None available

About the Role: Our client — a venture-backed AI company (Series A, 11-50 employees) — is hiring its first dedicated HR professional to own and strengthen core HR operations as the company grows. This is a greenfield opportunity to bring clear ownership and scalable processes to a function currently shared across Operations and the business.

The role is hands-on and execution-focused. You will own the day-to-day HR function, with emphasis on employee lifecycle management, compliance, and effective partnership with benefits providers and employment counsel. Building strong operational foundations is the immediate priority. Once fundamentals are in place, there is appetite to expand into broader people initiatives such as culture, manager enablement, and employee experience. The right person is comfortable operating independently, enjoys bringing order to complexity, and is excited to be the first HR hire with meaningful ownership and room to grow.

What You'll Own

• Own the full employee lifecycle: onboarding end to end (equipment, accounts, orientation, first-week experience), role changes, offboarding, and terminations
• Maintain employment documentation and records, including offer letters, employment agreements, and separation materials
• Keep the HRIS (Rippling) clean, current, and accurate as the source of truth
• Serve as the primary internal owner for HR processes, including work with external vendors and outside counsel
• Apply working knowledge of California employment law to guide HR decisions, especially around in-person workplace requirements
• Handle employee transitions, terminations, and severance with consistency, care, and sound judgment
• Own benefits administration (health, retirement) and manage broker and provider relationships
• Partner closely with Finance — and sometimes lead — on payroll accuracy and compliance
• Build and document HR workflows that scale, introducing structure where processes are informal or evolving
• As the function matures, take on broader people programs (performance management, manager enablement, employee experience)

Must-Have Requirements

• 4-6 years of HR experience; flexibility for candidates whose early career was in office management or recruiting coordination before moving into HR
• Prior experience as the first or second HR hire at a Series A or B venture-backed startup — one-of-one or one-of-two ownership is the signal
• Experience at a venture-backed company with $10M+ in funding, ideally the most recent role
• California employment law fluency, with familiarity with in-person workplace considerations
• Strong HRIS fluency (Rippling a plus) and ability to keep the system clean as the source of truth
• Strong understanding of payroll fundamentals, with experience partnering with or leading payroll providers
• Demonstrated experience handling employee transitions, terminations, and severance in a thoughtful, compliant way
• Comfortable being the primary HR owner in a fast-moving environment, with the discernment to bring in counsel when the stakes require it
• Based in the SF Bay Area and willing to work in-person 5 days a week in Dogpatch

Nice-to-Have

• Rippling specifically
• Experience supporting a significant sales team (OTE, accelerators, multipliers, commission complexity)
• Multi-state or international employment exposure
• Experience building or supporting performance management processes
• Prior exposure to broader People Ops work (manager enablement, engagement, culture programs)

Benefits & Perks

• Daily catered lunch and dinner stipend
• $150 monthly wellness benefit
• 401(k) plan
• Commuter benefits
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Competitive equity