Director of People Operations

Link to role overview and process walkthrough: https://www.loom.com/share/d6812f53bdb24c8e859cc0b286ab48fb

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Level: Director

Location: Sydney, Australia. Hybrid, 2 days in the office

Team: 2 people: one in Talent Acquisition and a People Operations Manager. Together, you cover payroll, people programs, Talent Acquisition and IT provisioning globally

Remuneration: AUD 140,000 - AUD 180,000 (excl. Super)

Sitemate builds best-in-class software and AI agents for the built world, helping construction, infrastructure and industrial companies work smarter and faster. Our mission is to multiply the engineering power of the built world.

Storm is the #1 data capture agent for the front line of the built world - converting audio, photos and videos into clean structured records.

With conversational support in-app and across SMS, Whatsapp and phone calls, Storm is shifting front line workers from paperwork and clunky digital forms, to natural language and multi-channel data capture.

Our core platforms are Dashpivot (safety, quality and field reporting), Gearbelt (fleet and asset management), Flowsite (no-code integrations), and the Sitemate mobile app for every worker on site.

We have strong product-market fit, generating thousands of new leads per month through word of mouth and organic channels. We are backed by Blackbird, with 200 people across 18+ countries and entities in Australia, the UK, the US and Canada.

Sitemate's Director of People Operations owns the People Operations function end-to-end, global payroll, the employee lifecycle, Talent Acquisition and IT provisioning, and the People programs every department runs to, from performance, engagement and learning and development to levelling and compensation. The role leads a team of two: a Senior Talent Acquisition Manager and a People Operations Manager.

The job is to architect the next version of People Operations at Sitemate, built for the AI era so the team stays small as Sitemate grows. That only works if systems and AI agents do the admin, and managers and employees can get what they need at any hour, whether or not the People team is online.

This is a hands-on, builder-first role. You build the systems, agents and playbooks yourself, and set the bar through your own work.

At Sitemate, managers are player-coaches at every level, including the executive team. Time in the details sharpens the bar you hold, alongside the leadership work.

• The People Operations architecture. How our people system and tools work together across every entity, the data that flows between them, and which steps run without human admin. You design for automation first, within the systems we already run

• People Operations' AI agents and automation. What gets automated next, where agents get built, what stays human, and the guardrails, including which employee and payroll data each tool may touch

• The frameworks and playbooks. Written so managers can run a people process themselves, day or night, with a playbook or an agent to answer the question when the team isn't online

• The People programs. Career paths and levels, the promotion policy, the principles behind our compensation plans, learning and development, and the performance, engagement and promotion cycles. Each one is run like a product: its users are every manager at Sitemate, and adoption is how you measure it

• People data and listening. The engagement measurement system and the people reporting leaders use to make decisions, from how each metric is defined and kept confidential through to action and re-measurement

• The People Operations function and team. Its operating model, workforce plan and the breakdown standard beneath each initiative, with nothing entering execution until you've greenlit it. You lead, coach and develop the team, and make the performance, promotion and exit decisions within it

• Global Payroll. Accurate and on time every cycle, and reconciled with Finance

• The recruitment process. Scorecards, interview loops and the sourcing pipeline, plus the speed and quality of hiring into Sitemate

• CEO. Sets company strategy. You're responsible for translating it into clear people priorities, bringing synthesised options, and pushing back when warranted

• Finance. Your closest partner on payroll, headcount planning, compensation benchmarking and levelling.

• Legal. Support on employee relations casework and compliance globally

• Your team. A Senior Talent Acquisition Manager and a People Operations Manager. You set direction and standards, and they run their processes day to day

• Department leaders across GTM, EPD and Marketing. Your partners on org design, levelling, compensation and hiring. They and their managers run their people cycles and hiring loops off the frameworks and playbooks you build

People Operations at Sitemate is being rebuilt for the AI era, and this role leads it. In rough order of priority:

• Keep what's in flight running. Payroll, recruitment operations and compliance work are all in motion, and none of it can drop while the rebuild happens

• Map where the admin sits. Every manual step across payroll, the lifecycle, hiring and the People programs; what each one costs, and which ones an agent or automation should take first

• Design the next version of People Operations. How Rippling, Remote and Ashby work together with the agents built on top of them, written down so the CEO and the team can review it

• Build the first agents and automations. Starting with the steps that cost the most time or cause the most errors

• Turn the People programs into self-serve playbooks. So managers can run a cycle, a lifecycle change or a hiring loop themselves, at any hour

• Set up the People Operations Manager. Their priorities, their SLAs, and a written split between what they run and what you own

By 90 days

• You've mapped where manual admin sits across People Operations, and told the CEO in writing which steps you'll automate first and why

• Your first automation or agent is live in a real People process, with the before and after measured

• Every payroll run across globally has closed on time, reconciled and signed off by Finance

• Every in-flight payroll, recruitment operations and compliance item has a named owner and a written next step

By 6 months

• The design for the next version of People Operations is written down, agreed with the CEO, and being built against

• Managers can run at least one full people cycle from a playbook or agent without the People team stepping in

• The function's SLAs and KPIs are agreed with the CEO and reported against without being asked, including the share of lifecycle steps running without manual touch

By 12 months

• Calibration and promotion outcomes hold to one standard across departments, with the data to show it

• There's someone ready to step into at least one key role in your team if needed

• Personally build and fix People Operations workflows, automations and agents

• Design how Rippling, Remote and Ashby work together, and find the next manual step to remove

• Write and maintain the frameworks and playbooks managers run off

• Run the function's weekly cadence

• Coach your team on direction and standards, and hold the hiring bar

• Handle complex employee relations and compliance cases with Legal

• Own calibration, promotion and exit decisions across the function

Our Operating Principles are non-negotiable behavioural standards, written down and used in reviews. The ones this seat lives and enforces:

• Build the business like we build product. People Operations is run like a product. The systems and People programs have users, a roadmap and a scoreboard, and they're reviewed like a product surface

• Build AI native. The default question on any People process is which agent or automation should run it, and which part genuinely needs a person

• You ship your org chart. To hit a new goal with the same small team, we look at workflows, systems and role scope first. Org design is People Operations work, for every department

• Don't offload the thinking to the next person. A playbook, a brief to your team or an agent's instructions are complete enough to act on without a follow-up question

• Single responsible owner. People initiatives that touch Finance, Legal or other Operations streams get one accountable owner, with sub-tasks delegated to others

• Grow from within. Before opening a search, ask whether someone on the team is ready or nearly ready. You hold every department to the same question

• You've led People Operations through a high-growth, high-change period before, ideally a systems or process transformation at a 100 to 300 person scale-up

• You think in systems: you'd rather design a process once so it runs itself than handle the same case twice

• You've personally built HRIS, ATS, automation or AI agent workflows while running the function, and can walk through the details under pushback

• You've written frameworks or playbooks that managers ran themselves without coming back to you

• You have deep, current knowledge across payroll, compliance, employee relations, compensation and benefits, and recruitment, and handle complex cases yourself

• You thrive with ambiguity: given only a symptom, you move fast on your best hypothesis and adjust as you learn more

• You're measured by the people you grow as much as the systems you build

• You raise uncomfortable truths early, including upward

• Your instinct on a broken process is a new policy, a new tool or more headcount

• You rely on IT, vendors or specialist teams to build and own the detail

• You measure your value by being the person everyone comes to with questions

• You'd treat AI and automation as someone else's project

• You'd want a full audit before touching a live payroll or onboarding problem

• You need very stable, clearly defined reporting lines to stay consistent. This role involves real ambiguity as the function evolves

Must have

• People Operations or HR leadership experience, ideally through a comparable growth-stage transition

• Systems architecture thinking: designing how several platforms and their data work together so a process runs without manual admin

• Hands-on experience building automations or AI agents yourself

• Payroll and employment compliance across more than one jurisdiction, ideally Australia, the UK, the US and Canada

• Writing frameworks and playbooks that other teams run off, across levelling, compensation, performance or learning and development

• Designing and running people analytics and engagement measurement end to end

• Employee relations casework handled end to end

Nice to have

• Series B or growth-stage scale-up experience

Essential tools

• Rippling or a comparable HRIS and global payroll platform

• Remote or a comparable employer of record platform

• Ashby or a comparable ATS

• AI tools and AI coding tools (Claude, Claude Code)

• Project Management Tools (Slack, Jira, Confluence)

• Google Sheets

Bonus tools

• Zapier, Airtable or similar no-code automation

These are public, and they are how we actually operate. Candidates who have read them tend to have better conversations with us.

• The Sitemate Manifesto

• On How Sitemate Ships Now, In The Era of AI

• Zero Click Forms and Conversational Data Capture, the thinking behind Storm

• Taking AI To The Front Line

• On Sitemate's Values, Culture and DNA

• For The Managers and Leaders Building Sitemate

• On How Sitemate Makes Decisions

• On Operating Like a Pro Sports Team, Not a Family

• Full transparency: monthly all-hands share metrics, hiring plans and financial performance. Levels, career frameworks and pay ranges are visible to every employee

• Player-coach leadership at every level, including the executive team

• Global team across Australia, the UK, the US and Canada

• Sydney HQ

• Equity, 20 days annual leave plus sick, carer's and compassionate leave, 16 weeks primary and 6 weeks secondary carer parental leave, EAP, L&D budget, home office setup, weekly catered lunches, work-from-anywhere weeks, flex days

• People of Sitemate link to hear from the team directly

PLEASE Note:

• We hire directly and don’t work with agencies