Senior People & Culture Business Partner

RapidSOS•New York, NY

8d•$160,000 - $170,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior People & Culture Business Partner works closely with Business Unit leaders to build the teams, leadership capability, and organizational effectiveness needed to achieve business goals. This is a strategic, hands-on role that requires a deep understanding of the business, its priorities, and challenges. The position serves as a trusted advisor and constructive challenger, influencing decisions about how the organization is structured, led, and supported through practical advice, coaching, people expertise, and sound judgment. A key measure of success is the capability of the leaders supported: helping them take ownership of people responsibilities, make thoughtful decisions, and build high-performing teams. The role reports to the VP, People & Culture and partners with Talent Acquisition, People Operations & Total Rewards, Organizational Capability, Finance, and Legal. As RapidSOS becomes increasingly AI-native, the role also helps use AI and technology to simplify routine work and create more capacity for meaningful business partnership. This is a hybrid role based in New York City, with an expectation of working from the NYC office two to three days per week. No regular travel is required. The salary range is $160,000–$170,000, and the role is eligible for equity options.

Requirements

Significant experience as a People & Culture or HR Business Partner, ideally supporting senior leaders in a scaling or fast-changing organization.
Strong business acumen and ability to translate business priorities into effective workforce, organizational, and people decisions.
Credibility to influence and constructively challenge senior leaders, with a coaching approach that builds leadership capability and accountability.
Experience in organization design, workforce planning, compensation, performance, talent, and organizational change.
Strong US employee relations expertise, including investigations, performance management, accommodations, and separations.
Working knowledge of multi-state employment requirements.
Sound judgment, independence, and ability to balance business needs, team member experience, consistency, and risk.
Strong communication skills and confidence using workforce data to inform decisions and recommendations.
Adaptability, curiosity, and practical AI fluency, with the ability to work effectively in a changing environment.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a scaling technology company or multi-Business Unit or matrix organization.
Experience supporting restructures, integrations, or significant operating model change.
SHRM-CP/SCP, PHR/SPHR, or equivalent professional certification.

Responsibilities

Build trusted relationships with Business Unit leaders and develop a deep understanding of their strategies, business performance, priorities, and challenges.
Translate business priorities into practical people and organizational plans, proactively identifying workforce, leadership, and capability needs.
Advise and constructively challenge leaders on complex decisions, accountability, and outcomes.
Use workforce data and business insights to identify risks, challenge assumptions, and recommend improvements to organizational effectiveness.
Translate EOS business plans and priorities into workforce and organizational requirements, including needed talent, capabilities, and structures.
Partner with leaders on workforce planning and organization design, including future capacity, critical roles, capability gaps, accountabilities, decision rights, and spans of control.
Guide role scoping, job leveling, job descriptions, and headcount requests with Talent Acquisition and People Operations & Total Rewards.
Advise on compensation decisions, including offers, promotions, pay adjustments, and reviews, applying performance, market data, internal equity, and Total Rewards frameworks.
Guide leaders through organizational change and ensure people impacts and transitions are managed effectively.
Coach leaders to build high-performing teams, set clear expectations, provide meaningful feedback, and own their people responsibilities.
Embed RapidSOS's Continuous Performance approach and support calibration, succession planning, retention risk assessment, and development priorities.
Partner with Organizational Capability to embed leadership frameworks and development programs, coach leaders in applying them, and identify emerging capability needs.
Help Business Unit leaders strengthen culture by incorporating company values and expected leadership behaviors into everyday decisions and team practices.
Help leaders understand engagement and cultural challenges and use feedback and insights to strengthen team effectiveness and the team member experience.
Lead US employee relations and case management involving conduct, performance, attendance, accommodations, grievances, and separations, ensuring matters are handled fairly, consistently, and promptly.
Conduct and oversee workplace investigations, ensuring appropriate processes, objective findings, thorough documentation, and well-reasoned recommendations.
Advise and coach leaders on complex employment matters and difficult people decisions while balancing business needs, team member experience, consistency, risk, and leadership accountability.
Assess employment risks and determine appropriate escalation, partnering with Legal on significant-risk matters, legal interpretation, or broader organizational implications.
Identify recurring employee relations issues and address underlying leadership, organizational, or framework gaps.
Bring the business perspective to the design and improvement of People & Culture frameworks, playbooks, programs, and workflows.
Partner across People & Culture, Finance, and Legal to keep people initiatives and decisions practical, consistent, and aligned with business needs.
Use AI, automation, and self-service tools to improve the quality and efficiency of People & Culture work while retaining human judgment in complex and sensitive matters.