Senior People Strategy & Programs Manager

Crusoe•Denver, CO

About The Position

The Senior People Strategy & Programs Manager is the connective tissue of the People team - the person who picks up the problem before it has a name, figures out whether it needs a quick fix or a lasting solution, and sees it through either way. This role sits within the People Operations and Strategy team, working closely with the Sr. Director of People Operations, spanning People Strategy & Operations, Analytics & Insights, New Hire Programs, Talent Management, and HR Compliance & Governance. You will serve as a trusted thought partner and a highly autonomous executor. You will be the first call when something doesn’t neatly fit anyone’s lane - and you’ll know when to move fast and when to build for scale.

Requirements

8–10+ years HR experience as a generalist, specialist, project manager or program manager.
HR fluency: You don’t need to be an HRBP, but you understand how people functions work — the language, the levers, and the landmines.
Strong risk barometer: You can sense when something is a minor issue vs. a legal, cultural, or operational risk, and you respond accordingly.
Autonomous problem-solving: You don’t wait to be handed a playbook. You research, synthesize, and propose.
Discretion: You handle sensitive information with care and know what to say, to whom, and when.
Comfort with ambiguity: You thrive when the scope is undefined and the path isn’t clear.
Organized: You manage projects end to end, stay organized under pressure, and bring structure to chaos.
Cross-functional influence: You’ve worked across teams and can earn trust and drive alignment without formal authority.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a People Ops or HR Strategy at a high-growth company.
Track record of building programs or processes from scratch.
Exposure to multiple People sub-functions (e.g., talent management, compliance, new hire programs, analytics, compensation, recruiting).
Experience with change management and cross-functional rollouts.

Responsibilities

Diagnose and Solve Ambiguous Problems: Pick up nascent, undefined problems and determine the right level of solution — a scrappy one-time fix or a systemic change with rollout and change management. Operate with limited information and high stakes, asking the right questions to bring clarity before others have framed the issue. Distinguish between one-off situations and recurring patterns; build durable infrastructure when it’s warranted.
Act as a Trusted Partner to People Leadership: Serve as a brainstorming partner and sounding board to the Sr. Director of People. Translate high-level strategic objectives into actionable operational frameworks, developing repeatable playbooks, standardized processes, and evaluation frameworks to ensure consistent execution at scale. Exercise strong judgment about when to escalate, when to loop in others, and when to just solve it. Manage the internal operating rhythm of the People team, facilitating strategic planning sessions, tracking departmental OKRs/goals, and ensuring accountability across sub-functions on core priorities. Synthesize cross-functional data and qualitative insights into executive narratives, helping draft high-leverage communications, board materials, or quarterly business reviews (QBRs) for People team leadership.
Drive Cross-Functional Initiatives End to End: Own projects from scoping through delivery, managing timelines, stakeholders, and communications. Serve as an operational force multiplier for functional leads, streamlining manager and employee enablement and managing cross-team handoffs from initial launch all the way through stabilization. Bring the right people into the conversation at the right time — neither siloing nor over-involving. Orchestrate the People team’s readiness for complex initiatives like geographic expansion, partnering with Compliance, Onboarding, Benefits, Payroll, Compensation, and People Operations specialists to synchronize timelines, map dependencies, and ensure a seamless launch. Influence without authority across functions and levels of the organization.
Build 0→1 in a Dynamic Environment: Design and stand up new programs, processes, or frameworks where none exist. Research best practices and adapt them to Crusoe’s context and stage. Build with the right level of rigor — scalable where it matters, lightweight where it doesn’t. Codify institutional knowledge into reusable playbooks, ensuring that once a new process or program is successfully stabilized, it is documented and seamlessly handed off to core operational teams.