People Operations Lead

Axle Labs•New York, NY

3d•$140,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Axle is seeking a People Operations Lead to build the people function from the ground up. This role will serve as the connective tissue between hiring ambitions and the team experience, ensuring people want to stay and do their best work. The position requires a full-stack recruiting mandate, leading hiring for both technical (Engineering, Product) and go-to-market (Sales, Partnerships, Deployment) teams, necessitating fluency in operating across diverse talent markets. The role will involve periods of high-volume recruiting (50-75% of the time) and periods focused on people operations (25-50% of the time), including onboarding, culture development, learning and development, performance management, and compensation bands. The goal is to ensure every new hire is set up for success from day one.

Requirements

5+ years of experience across Talent/Recruiting and People/HR, with depth in both areas.
Experience at a venture-backed startup (Seed through Series C) in a hyper-growth phase.
Proven track record as a hands-on operator who has also built systems.
Comfortable closing candidates and designing compensation bands.
Deep recruiting instincts, with experience filling diverse roles across technical and go-to-market teams.
Experience managing external recruiters to achieve results.
Fluency with modern people tooling (ATS, HRIS).
Bias toward automation and AI.
Exceptional judgment, discretion, and communication skills.
A builder's mindset: comfortable with ambiguity, cyclical workloads, and defining the function as you go.

Nice To Haves

Experience as the first People/Talent hire at a venture-backed startup, establishing the function from scratch.
Experience hiring technical talent (engineering, product) at a high bar.
Experience implementing or deeply administering an ATS (Ashby is a plus).
Experience building hiring analytics and reporting.
A strong network across NYC startup talent.

Responsibilities

Own all open requisitions across technical (Engineering, Product) and go-to-market (Sales, Partnerships, Deployment) hiring, plus Corporate roles, managing pipeline, calibration, and velocity.
Source, select, and manage external recruiting partners, holding them accountable for results.
Administer and optimize the ATS (Ashby), including workflow automation and funnel reporting.
Design and execute a candidate experience that is fast, personal, and consistent.
Drive the offer process end-to-end, including leveling, compensation, and closing candidates.
Standardize interview panels and train interviewers to maintain a high hiring bar.
Build Axle's employer brand and talent pipeline through recruiting and talent-building events.
Build and own the onboarding process for new hires.
Develop the employee handbook, initial HR policies, and internal resources for a growing team across New York and Atlanta.
Partner with leadership on compensation bands, benchmarking, equity refreshes, and performance/feedback cycles.
Own the HR systems, including HRIS (Rippling) and ATS (Ashby), and their connecting workflows.
Shape the company culture through rituals, onsites, recognition, and in-office events.
Partner with the founding team on organizational design and headcount planning.
Build out AI agents/skills to bridge communication gaps between teams.
Develop best practices for team members on tool usage.
Identify and champion opportunities for AI or automation to accelerate business processes.
Experiment with new tools and workflows.
Partner with relevant teams to implement ideas.
Encourage broad adoption of new tools across the team.