Senior Manager, People Operations

Linden Lab•San Francisco, CA

2d•$150,000 - $203,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Linden Lab develops platforms that empower people to create, connect, and thrive through transformative virtual experiences. Since our founding in 1999, we have been at the forefront of the creator economy, building durable platforms that support limitless imagination, self-expression, and human connection. In 2003, we launched Second Life, a vibrant, user-driven virtual world that has grown into a living global community. Hundreds of thousands of people actively spend time there, building relationships, expressing themselves, and creating meaning together. With over two billion user creations and a flourishing $650 million economy, Second Life enables people not only to connect, but for those who choose, to build real livelihoods through their creativity. Unlike traditional social media, Second Life fosters sustained, positive connection between strangers. It offers mobility, agency, and community to people whose real-world circumstances may limit their options, and it creates space for belonging, collaboration, and shared purpose. For many, it is not just a platform, but a place where they can participate fully and authentically. The same principles that shape our communities also guide how we work together. We believe our strength lies in diversity of perspectives, experiences, and ideas. Our values are rooted in organizational health, strengths-based leadership, and the belief that collaborative teams are stronger than individuals. At Linden Lab, your work directly shapes how real people connect, create, and build meaningful lives online. You will be part of a thoughtful, mission-driven team working on technology with real social impact and uncommon longevity. Whether you are building innovative tools or fostering a welcoming community, you will find a place to belong, grow, and do work that matters. We invite you to come as you are.

Requirements

7+ years of progressive People Operations experience, with deep, hands-on expertise across payroll, benefits, leaves, compliance, HR systems, and the employee lifecycle, including experience supporting a multi-state workforce and strong knowledge of California requirements.
3+ years of experience directly managing and developing others, with the ability to create clarity, build capability and judgment, delegate meaningful ownership, and maintain a consistently high bar for the work.
A systems-thinking mindset and a track record of looking beyond the immediate task to understand root causes, dependencies, downstream impacts, and opportunities to build better ways of working.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively across the organization and manage up by anticipating what leaders need to know, proactively surfacing relevant context, progress, and risks, and bringing thoughtful recommendations.
Demonstrated experience designing and building process automations and workflows that meaningfully change how work gets done, using automation, AI, integrations, or no-code/low-code tools to reduce manual effort, prevent errors, and create leverage.
Strong analytical and program management skills, with the ability to use data to spot patterns and inform decisions while bringing structure to complex, cross-functional work and driving it through successful implementation.
Exceptional execution capacity and a strong sense of urgency. You can manage a high volume of work and competing priorities, keep things moving, close loops, and maintain a high bar for accuracy and quality along the way.
Exceptional resourcefulness and self-directed learning skills. You know how to get yourself up to speed, find the right information, learn unfamiliar systems and requirements, and confidently jump into problems you haven’t encountered before. We’ll help you learn Linden’s context and ways of working; you’ll bring the functional expertise to take it from there.
Excellent judgment, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, develop a point of view, make sound decisions within your scope, and recognize when something genuinely requires escalation.
High emotional intelligence and discretion, particularly when helping employees navigate sensitive or complex situations.
A continuous-improvement mindset and genuine curiosity about new tools, practices, and possibilities. You’re energized by making things better and expect your own skills and the systems around you to keep evolving.

Responsibilities

Run the day-to-day People Operations function, owning operational execution and ensuring the work is accurate, timely, compliant, and delivers a consistently high-quality employee experience.
Lead payroll administration and the execution of approved compensation changes across our multi-state workforce, maintaining strong controls and resolving issues quickly and accurately.
Oversee and execute benefits, retirement plan, employee leave, and workers’ compensation administration, balancing technical precision and compliance with an experience that makes complex programs easier for employees to navigate.
Lead the employee lifecycle from pre-onboarding through offboarding, bringing together systems, logistics, communications, manager readiness, employee changes, and key milestones to create a seamless, high-quality experience.
Drive continuous improvement across the function, using systems thinking, data, and feedback to identify root causes, simplify complexity, strengthen self-service, and design out recurring problems.
Design and build automated workflows that eliminate unnecessary manual work, improve handoffs, prevent errors, and create leverage across the People function, turning opportunities for automation into working solutions.
Optimize our People systems, including Paylocity, maintaining exceptional data integrity and finding better ways for our technology, data, and workflows to work together.
Develop and analyze People metrics, dashboards, and reporting to surface workforce trends, employee insights, emerging risks, and opportunities, translating data into actionable recommendations for People leadership.
Drive recurring compliance and audit work, including retirement plan administration, worker classification, payroll and state tax requirements, employee records, and other regulatory obligations, translating changing requirements into reliable processes and controls.
Advise employees and managers on policies, benefits, leaves, performance processes, and day-to-day employee matters, applying strong judgment and recognizing when an issue requires broader People leadership involvement.
Hire, manage, and develop a People Operations team member, building their expertise, judgment, confidence, and ownership while creating strong shared context, cross-training, and continuity across the function.
Proactively surface meaningful trends, risks, decisions, and progress to People leadership, bringing the right context and thoughtful recommendations so leaders have what they need to make informed decisions.
Shape broader People initiatives and strategy through your functional expertise, data, and proximity to the work, helping us build programs, systems, and employee experiences that are as strong in execution as they are in design.