As a key growth accelerator, A11 partners with Europe’s most ambitious startups and scaleups, corporates and SMBs to connect them with top-tier talent ready to make an impact.
We're looking for a driven Founding People Lead (m/f/d, 80%) to build and lead the People function from the ground up at Optiml.
As a Founding People Lead you'll build the entire people engine from scratch, treating People Ops like a product and designing automated systems so a lean team operates like a much bigger one.
Join the A11 Ecosystem - Optiml is rebuilding how investment decisions get made in the world's largest asset class, real estate. As rising rates, looming refinancing, and shifting regulation make portfolios harder to steer, Optiml's platform, Real Estate Decision Intelligence (REDI), uses AI to turn scattered building, financial, and regulatory data into clear, evidence-backed decisions on where to hold, sell, renovate, or refinance. An ETH Zurich spin-off backed by world-class investors including Innovation Endeavors, Planet A Ventures, and KOMPAS, Optiml is scaling fast across Europe.
In this role, you’ll:- Own recruiting and hiring end-to-end across commercial, technical, and operational roles, partnering with hiring managers to define requirements, build structured interview kits, and standardise candidate communication
- Build and automate onboarding, offboarding, and performance-review workflows using an AI-native stack (Notion, Slack, AI agents), and own the people tech stack end-to-end
- Design and own culture rituals and communication systems that keep a distributed, hub-and-spoke team (CH, DE, UK) connected, including planning and running offsites and culture initiatives
- Run performance management (30/60/90s, probation reviews) and own HR operations and compliance across the CH, DE, and UK entities, partnering with the Head of Operations
Typical Tasks:
- Evaluate and implement tools and automations that cut manual admin
- Act as the day-to-day point of contact for employees on culture, wellbeing, and people questions
- Manage day-to-day employee relations, including performance concerns, grievances, and sensitive situations, escalating appropriately
- Support compensation and benefits administration: salary reviews, benchmarking, and benefits setup and renewal across entities
- 4 to 7 years in People Ops, HR, or Recruitment, including time in a startup or high-paced environment, or a strong track record in an adjacent field (operations, consulting, founder's office) with a genuine pull toward people and culture work
- Proven ownership of a full people function or key processes end-to-end: you have built structure from scratch without a roadmap and kept several workstreams running in parallel
- Track record owning full-cycle recruiting across roles and departments: sourcing, screening, and closing
- Strong stakeholder management, building trusted relationships across a distributed team and with founders
- Business acumen: you understand the business model, stage, and priorities and make people and hiring decisions from the business need backwards
- Builder mentality: you use AI tools daily in your own workflow and are energized by removing manual, repeatable work
- A track record setting up and improving HR operations end-to-end (HRIS, processes, policies, compliance) is ideal
- Strong written and verbal English, German is a nice-to-have
- Based in or able to work from London, and willing to travel to Zurich and offsites
Please note that this position is based in London or Berlin.
Benefits and Perks:- Direct impact: play a critical role in scaling a company transforming how real estate makes investment decisions
- Ownership: build and own the people function's tooling and systems from scratch, not inherit someone else's stack
- Growth: work closely with leadership and gain exposure across all company functions
- Culture: join a mission-driven, high-performance, distributed team you will help shape
- Learning and development budget
If you’re eager to join the A11 Ecosystem and shape what’s next, we want to hear from you!
Our Commitment to Diversity and InclusionA11 is committed to diverse and equal opportunities hiring for all – applicants, candidates, and employees alike. We value humans – with all our glorious multifaceted backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences – and look forward to your application.
Skills Required
- 4 to 7 years of experience in People Operations, HR, or Recruitment, including experience in a startup or high-paced environment; adjacent operations, consulting, or founder’s office experience may qualify
- Experience owning a full people function or key people processes end-to-end
- Experience building structure from scratch and managing multiple parallel workstreams
- Track record of full-cycle recruiting across roles and departments, including sourcing, screening, and closing
- Strong stakeholder management and ability to build trusted relationships with distributed teams and founders
- Business acumen and ability to align people and hiring decisions with business needs
- Builder mentality and regular use of AI tools to improve workflows
- Strong written and verbal English
- Based in or able to work from London or Berlin
- Willingness to travel to Zurich and company offsites
- Experience setting up and improving HR operations, including HRIS, processes, policies, and compliance
- German language skills
What We Do
Project A is one of the leading early-stage tech investors in Europe with offices in Berlin and London. In addition to $1bn assets under management, Project A supports its portfolio companies with a platform team of over 100 functional experts in key areas such as software and product development, data, brand, marketing, sales and recruiting. The venture capital firm was founded in 2012 and has backed more than 100 startups. The portfolio includes companies such as Trade Republic, WorldRemit, sennder, KRY, Spryker, Catawiki, Unmind and Voi
