Your Role

We are looking for a strategically minded, operationally strong People Operations & Experience Manager to design, build, and lead a world-class People Ops function while elevating the day-to-day experience of our team.

This role blends People Operations, Office Operations, and executive support. You will serve as the foundation for scalable HR infrastructure while shaping the employee experience during a critical growth phase, scaling from 70 employees today to 150+ next year.

You will:

• Lead People Operations systems and support across the full employee lifecycle
• Own office operations and culture-building logistics
• Partner closely with leadership on communication, scheduling, and administrative support
• This is a builder role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, values clarity over chaos, and wants to architect systems that scale.

Ideal Candidate

• 3-5 years in People Ops at a fast-growing startup (Series A/B), scaling from 50-150+ employees
• Strong operational builder—creates scalable processes, documentation, and self-service resources from scratch
• Handles diverse HR questions with sound judgment (onboarding, benefits, compliance, visas) and knows when to escalate
• Detail-oriented project manager comfortable with HRIS systems (Rippling a plus) and basic employment law
• Self-starter who thrives in ambiguity, pragmatic over perfectionist, and interested in leveraging AI for HR operations
• Bonus: fintech/insurtech experience, visa process knowledge, office ops background

Responsibilities will include

Objective #1: In your first 4 weeks, you will:

• Dive deep into Ascend’s mission, product, values, and org structure
• Align with the Head of People on priorities, reporting cadence, and success metrics
• Independently manage day-to-day HR inquiries across policies, benefits, payroll, PTO, leaves, employment verification, and HR systems, escalating complex matters appropriately
• Convert existing documentation into a formal, compliant employee handbook and identify policy gaps
• Fully own onboarding and offboarding processes, including systems access and device logistics
• Centralize visa documentation and tracking while preparing employee-facing visa support materials

Key outcomes:

• Employee handbook distributed and acknowledged by 100% of employees in Rippling
• Weekly HR inquiry reporting established with resolution tracking
• Onboarding pulse survey designed and launched with ≥95% positive results
• 100% of offboardings completed within 7 days
• Centralized visa tracking system implemented

Objective #2: In your first 60 days, you will:

• Establish standardized monthly people reporting, including headcount, attrition, and new hire retention metrics
• Build a centralized reporting database to support executive visibility
• Create scalable self-service HR resources, including updated wiki documentation, FAQs, and templates
• Pilot an AI-supported internal knowledge base focused on visa and compliance questions
• Design and launch a lightweight employee feedback mechanism with ≥70% participation

Key outcomes:

• First monthly people report delivered
• Improved employee engagement with self-service resources
• Clear summary of employee experience insights with actionable recommendations

Objective #3: In your first 90 days and beyond, you will:

• Implement standardized manager toolkits for feedback, growth conversations, and expectations
• Design and operationalize a defensible performance review framework
• Support leveling, promotion, and growth frameworks across teams
• Maintain multi-state employment and visa compliance while keeping documentation audit-ready
• Proactively identify patterns across teams that inform retention, growth, and policy decisions
• Long term success in this role means Ascend operates with clear, consistent, and scalable people systems that support both rapid growth and thoughtful decision-making.

You might be a good fit if you are / have

• Excited about an office role (5 days a week)
• 3 to 5 years of People Ops experience in a fast-growing startup environment, ideally Series A or B, scaling from 50 to 150+ employees
• A strong operational builder who creates scalable processes, documentation, and self-service resources from scratch
• Comfortable handling diverse HR questions with sound judgment and knowing when to escalate
• Detail-oriented with experience using HRIS systems such as Rippling and a working knowledge of multi-state employment compliance
• A pragmatic self-starter who thrives in ambiguity and is excited about leveraging AI to improve HR operations
• Bonus: fintech or insurtech experience, visa process familiarity, and office operations experience

Base Salary: $90,000-130,000