Head of People Operations

Atomic Machines•Santa Clara, CA

7d•$215,000 - $240,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Atomic Machines is building up its People Operations from early-stage startup to infrastructure for scale. We’re bringing benefits and payroll in-house, evaluating a new HRIS, and want a genuinely AI-forward point of view on the tools we adopt — and all of this sits within one broader mandate: making the full employee experience, from onboarding through daily life at a site to how people are supported and recognized, reliable and consistent as we grow past 200+ employees across multiple locations. This role owns that mandate end to end: People Operations (the employee lifecycle — onboarding, benefits, payroll, leave, compliance), People Programs (performance management and development), People Systems (HRIS and tooling decisions, with a pragmatic AI-forward lens), and the Atomizer Experience (the day-to-day experience of being at one of our sites, including team events and cross-site consistency — not facilities or building management, which is handled separately). These aren’t separate workstreams bolted together; they’re one continuous employee experience that this role is accountable for end to end. What matters most is the ability to take operations, programs, systems, and employee experience from founder-era ignition events to reliable, scaled, and thoughtfully modern. AI-enabled tools and workflows should be built into the foundations while balancing the ability to personally build custom automations as we learn with everyone else. This role reports to the VP, People, and works in direct partnership with the executive team, including the CEO, while personally leading and coaching the existing People Operations team through this maturation.

Requirements

10 + years of progressive People Operations leadership experience, ideally including a startup-to-scale transition; experience in a technical, hardware, or manufacturing environment is a plus.
Direct experience bringing a function like benefits or payroll in-house, or managing complex payroll/benefits administration at scale.
A strong track record of process design and systems implementation: HRIS selection/implementation, SOP design, and data governance.
A genuinely curious, pragmatic approach to AI-enabled People Ops tools and being comfortable evaluating and adopting them thoughtfully.
Experience owning performance management or employee development programs at a scaling company.
Experience owning in-office employee experience, events and site-level culture — across multiple locations, distinct from building/facilities management.
Strong California (and ideally multi-state) employment law fluency.
Executive presence: comfortable advising executives and translating operational plans into business terms.
Experience managing, coaching, and developing People Operations team members.
Bachelors Degree.
Ability to work in-person from Emeryville, with periodic presence in Santa Clara.

Nice To Haves

experience in a technical, hardware, or manufacturing environment is a plus.
ideally multi-state employment law fluency.

Responsibilities

Own the full employee lifecycle end-to-end — onboarding/offboarding, benefits, payroll coordination, leave, and immigration/regulatory compliance — including leading the transition of benefits and payroll from our PEO to in-house administration.
Build the operational rigor — process documentation, SOPs, data integrity — that lets these processes hold up as the company scales past 200+ employees and multiple sites.
Be the execution partner for our core company processes — compensation administration, performance management, and employee development — turning them into clean, well-run programs rather than one-off events.
Bring a modern, evidence-based approach to how these programs run, iterating based on what’s actually working.
Evaluate and select HRIS and People systems appropriate for a scaling company, favoring proven platforms over one-off custom builds.
Bring a genuinely curious, evaluative mindset to AI-enabled features and vendors — fluent in assessing what’s built into ATS, HRIS, and benefits platforms, without needing to personally build custom automation.
Own the day-to-day experience of being at an Atomic Machines site — company and site-level events, and the everyday things that make people feel like part of a team — across Emeryville, Santa Clara, and future locations.
Ensure that experience is consistent across sites as the company grows, rather than depending on informal effort at any one location.
Lead, coach, and develop the existing People Operations team through this maturation.
Make deliberate vendor, tooling, and headcount tradeoffs; set clear priorities and quality standards across Operations, Programs, Systems, and the Atomizer Experience.