People Enablement Partner

Orbital • New York, NY

12h • $135,000 - $165,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Orbital is scaling fast as we build the AI technologies powering the future of enterprise productivity. To support this growth, we're hiring an experienced and forward-thinking People Enablement Partner to design, drive, and deliver how we support and retain world-class talent at Orbital. This is a mid to senior role with both strategic and hands-on ownership to design People Products, influence direction, and shape how our managers and teams operate at scale.

The job, in a nutshell
You'll be one of the first hires in our US People function. You'll report initially to our People Director (based in London), and then to our New York-based VP of People once that role is in place later in our US expansion. As a foundational US People team hire, you'll have real influence over how this function (and your role within it) evolves. We're building a modern People team leaning into an 'Employee Experience as a Product' methodology: designing scalable solutions that support individual growth and business success, not just reactive fixes.
Our operating model is built on three main layers: Partner, Product and Platform.
Partner: The layer closest to the people leading teams. It works closely with them, understands the work they do, and helps them lead with confidence and consistency.
Product: The layer that shapes how the organisation works. It designs the frameworks and experiences people use, and improves them as the company grows.
Platform: The operating layer the whole function runs on. It keeps the systems and data underneath effective, integrated, automated and built to scale.
These aren't separate sub-teams or job titles; they describe the type of work involved, and act as a flywheel, each layer feeding the other two;
This role sits equally across Partner and Product layers. In practice, this means that you'll partner with managers to surface insights, then own the design and implementation of people solutions from start to finish. Your Partnering focus will primarily be our go-to-market teams, which are mostly US-based with some overlap into the UK. Product layer, on the other hand, is designed to work company-wide: you'll partner closely with our UK-based People Enablement Partner and People Director so what we build lands consistently across teams and regions.

Requirements

• You have relevant experience in People Partnering and/or People Operations with strength on one side combined with desire to build in the other.
• You have a strong working knowledge of US federal and state employment laws (e.g. FLSA, Title VII, ADA, ADEA, EEO, wage and hour, worker classification).
• Comfortable with at-will employment and managing separations across multiple states, or confident picking up new state requirements as we expand.
• You have hands-on experience with FMLA administration and other leave of absence processes (e.g. state paid family leave programs, ADA accommodations, parental leave), including advising managers and supporting employees through the full leave lifecycle.
• You enjoy working closely with managers as well as building scalable people initiatives and have the ability to transform insights into real business impact.
• You have strong communication and relationship-building skills combined with good judgment and discretion when working with sensitive employee matters and issues.
• You care deeply about employee experience and business impact, and want to find ways to combine these in a meaningful way.
• You thrive in ambiguity where we don't always have all the answers and rewriting People Playbooks excites you.
• You combine strategic thinking with a pragmatic, hands-on approach, operating comfortably across proactive projects while building foundational processes.
• You embrace technology and AI, and actively look for ways they can help you and others work smarter.
• You understand the nuances between urgent and important and how to prioritize accordingly.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in fast scaling tech/AI startups
• Experience working with commercial teams, variable compensation/OTE structures
• Experience supporting organizations operating across both the US and UK (or other international markets)
• Exposure to UK employment law is a plus, given we operate across both markets, though you'll have a strong UK-based team to lean on for this.
• Comfort with tools like Hibob and Justworks (or similar HRIS), Notion, Slack and the Google ecosystem

Responsibilities

• Partner with managers across the business to diagnose team challenges, surfacing deep insights that will shape our People Product roadmap.
• Enable managers to confidently handle performance, conduct, and team issues through effective coaching, guidance, and accessible resources.
• Apply product management principles, such as user research, problem framing, roadmap prioritization, MVP testing and tracking outcomes, when designing new People processes.
• Design and implement scalable People Products that support employees at all stages, create measurable business outcomes, and scale effectively with the business.
• Own the People Product lifecycle end-to-end: from identifying the foundational problem and designing the solution, through to successful rollout and adoption.
• Serve as a trusted advisor on US employment matters, including multi-state compliance, FMLA administration, leaves of absence, and day-to-day employee relations.
• Identify patterns that signal where new solutions are needed and translate insights into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Find ways to measure outcomes that highlight impact and identify where we still need to improve.
• Iterate on what you build based on real-world feedback; nothing is set and forget.

Benefits

• Competitive starting salary in the range of $135,000-$165,000, depending on experience.
• 401k match and equity options in a fast-growing start-up.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents.
• 20 days paid holiday (plus public holidays).
• Generous parental leave policy designed to support all parents and caregivers in balancing family and work life, in addition to any state-mandated paid family leave entitlements.
• Professional equipment and personal development budget along with training opportunities to learn and develop your skills.
• Pre-tax commuter benefits to help you get to and from the office.
• Regular team off-sites, shared lunches, and social events.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed