Director, People Ops

Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue now exceeds $100m USD and millions use our browser on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work — you've come to the right place!

Working on the People Operations Functional Team, you’ll use your complex tactical and strategic skills to boost organizational performance by developing, enabling, and retaining talent in alignment with DuckDuckGo's core values.

Recent projects include:

• Restructuring our Performance Review Process for scalability; pushing decision-making farther down to functional teams

• Clarifying accountability chains in our distributed leadership environment, across Career Advisors, Objective DRIs, Functional DRIs and other leadership roles

• Creating automated Work Summaries that represent >80% of team members’ work to be delivered to everyone for self reflection and evaluations

As a Director, People Operations, you’ll tackle ambiguous organizational challenges using your sharply honed execution skills, deep fluency with data and refined pragmatism that enables you to achieve ethical results quickly. Most of your work will be with performance systems, like our bespoke annual performance review process, mid-cycle check-ins and company-wide engagement insofar as it delivers performance results.

• You process complexity with high-throughput; you achieve through hard work, leadership and efficiency, but not long hours.

• You operate as a tactician; while you are conversant in strategy, you thrive in getting stuff done yourself as well.

• You have experience facing ambiguous organizational performance challenges, chunking them out, and tackling them one by one, leading others as necessary.

• You have proven experience building frameworks and approaches for problems that don't have obvious solutions or established playbooks / best practices.

• You are able to deeply articulate your proposals through data and results; you are able to run experiments targeting expected outcomes.

• You aren’t afraid to show your work; you seek feedback on your initiatives before you reach diminishing returns and you’re hungry for others’ input to improve outcomes.

• You are comfortable and adept at operating in a concise, asynchronous environment while building relationships cross-functionally to operationalize your initiatives.

• You have a knack for translating culture into principles, protocols and algorithms, but keeping the heart in it.

$243,800 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is identical within professional levels, regardless of geographic location or team. Compensation for each professional level is transparent across the organization.

Eligibility for company-sponsored health benefits is limited to team members based in the United States. This program does not extend to team members located in other countries, such as Canada or the UK.

Our Team Member Support Guide explains how we prioritize your wellbeing including paid parental leave, office setup, and co-working allowances.

Hiring works best when it's a two-way street. Learn how we help you get to know DuckDuckGo, envision your future role here, and find out more about how we hire.

DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.

We want to ensure that our hiring process is accessible. If you need reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process because of a medical condition or disability, please send an email to [email protected] to let us know the nature of your request.

1. You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

2. Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.

3. While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

4. A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

5. By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

As part of our commitment to enhancing our recruitment process, we utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technology to assist in reviewing and summarizing job applications and test projects, including those tools integrated into our recruitment vendor platforms. We use AI to flag potentially fraudulent applications, analyze and summarize applicants’ experience, interviews, and project performance, and help streamline our selection process.

Key Principles:

1. Data Privacy: All information provided in your application will be handled in accordance with our Recruiting Privacy Policy. We ensure that your personal information is protected and used solely for recruitment purposes.

2. Human Oversight and Accountability: The AI technology is designed to support our hiring team by providing insights and summaries of applications and evaluations of test projects against scoring rubrics. All final evaluations and hiring decisions, however, will be made by our hiring team, who will consider the AI's input alongside other factors.

3. Transparency: We believe in transparency regarding our hiring practices. If you have any questions about how AI is used in our recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to us.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge and consent to the use of AI technology in our review process. If you would like to request an alternative selection process, please contact us as at [email protected]. Thank you for your interest in joining DuckDuckGo!