Head of People

What if the hardest part of scaling a frontier AI company isn't the technology or the market, but building the infrastructure that helps exceptional people do the best work of their careers?

We're the ~50-person team behind Stable Diffusion, Stable Video Diffusion, and FLUX.1—models with 400M+ downloads. But here's the challenge we're facing: as we scale from 50 to 150+ employees, we're competing for talent against companies with 10x our resources. Researchers who could join Google, OpenAI, or Anthropic. Engineers courted by every major tech company. Operators who thrive in zero-to-one environments. They choose us because we're building something that matters, at a pace that challenges them. Your job is to scale that without diluting it.

This is a rare opportunity to be the first dedicated senior People Operations leader at Black Forest Labs. You'll architect the infrastructure, culture, and talent systems that carry us through hypergrowth—not by following a traditional scale-up playbook, but by building something that works for a research-first AI company competing in the most talent-competitive sector in tech.

You'll be the person who:

• Defines and executes BFL's global People strategy aligned with rapid growth across Germany, the UK, US, and Europe
• Partners with our Recruiting team to ensure People programs scale alongside hiring velocity without compromising our technical quality bar
• Advises executives on org design, leadership development, compensation philosophy, performance frameworks, and people risk
• Drives culture, inclusion, and values alignment as we expand—preserving what makes BFL special while building what we need to scale
• Develops retention strategies for critical talent in an environment where poaching is constant and aggressive
• Builds and refines People operations including contracts, payroll, benefits, HRIS/ATS integration, and global mobility across multiple regions
• Designs scalable systems for performance reviews, career frameworks, and leadership development that work for researchers who thrive on autonomy
• Establishes compliant and efficient people operations processes across regions—maintaining rigor with startup agility
• Hires, mentors, and leads a high-impact HR and People Ops team as we scale
• Coaches managers and leaders on effective feedback, performance management, and engagement in a high-velocity environment
• Builds programs that strengthen management capability and career growth company-wide

• How do you compete for talent against AI giants with 10x our resources when compensation alone isn't enough?
• What motivates top-tier ML researchers to choose BFL over Google or OpenAI—and how do you design value propositions around that?
• How do you balance researchers who thrive on autonomy and publication freedom with the structure needed to triple headcount?
• What does "performance management" actually mean for a research-first company where breakthroughs are unpredictable?
• How do you build HR systems fast enough to support aggressive hiring velocity while maintaining quality?
• How do you shape a high-performance, inclusive culture across Freiburg, London, San Francisco, and beyond—where research excellence and commercial impact coexist?
• Where's the line between preserving culture and evolving it as we scale?

These aren't hypothetical—they're decisions that shape whether we win or lose the talent war.

You've built or scaled People functions in high-growth environments where the rules weren't written yet. You understand that supporting exceptional talent at a research-first AI company is fundamentally different from traditional tech scale-ups. You move fast, build trust quickly, and know when to design comprehensive systems versus ship something that works well enough today.

You likely have:

• 8+ years of progressive HR experience, including at least 3 years in a leadership role
• Proven success building or scaling HR functions in high-growth, global tech companies (preferably at the intersection of research and product)
• Experience operating across European and US employment frameworks—you understand the complexity of multi-region operations
• A reputation as a trusted advisor with strong relationship-building skills across all organizational levels
• Deep familiarity with modern HRIS tools, data-driven decision-making, and compliance frameworks
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills—you can translate between executive strategy and day-to-day operations
• The ability to thrive on velocity and ambiguity—you move fast, make informed decisions, and iterate quickly
• Full ownership mindset—you do what it takes to support the business
• The organizational skills to stay calm under pressure and manage multiple priorities seamlessly
• The ability to zoom out for executive strategy and zoom in for tactical execution

We'd be especially excited if you:

• Have prior experience at a research-first AI lab or managing talent at the intersection of academia and industry
• Were the first or early People Ops hire at a scaling startup and built the function from scratch
• Have strong collaboration experience with Recruiting/TA teams—you understand how to partner rather than hand off
• Bring experience with equity compensation and high-stakes employee relations
• Have technical fluency and comfort engaging with engineering and research teams
• Understand what makes top AI researchers tick and how to design environments where they thrive

This isn't a typical scale-up People role. You're building HR infrastructure for a company competing directly against AI giants—where agility and mission are your advantages. You're designing systems fast enough to support aggressive hiring while maintaining the technical quality bar that defines BFL. You're balancing the autonomy researchers need with the structure a scaling company requires. You're navigating compensation conversations where candidates compare our equity and mission against cash packages from Big Tech. You're shaping culture across continents where research excellence and commercial impact coexist. You're operating in the most talent-competitive sector in tech, where every hire, retention decision, and cultural choice has strategic consequences.

We're not just scaling headcount—we're building the people infrastructure that determines whether we can compete with companies that have 10x our resources. Every system you design makes it easier to attract and retain exceptional talent. Every retention strategy strengthens our competitive position. Every cultural choice shapes who we become. If that sounds more compelling than maintaining existing operations, we should talk.

Base Annual Salary: $200,000–$280,000 USD

We're based in Europe and value depth over noise, collaboration over hero culture, and honest technical conversations over hype. Our models have been downloaded hundreds of millions of times, but we're still a ~50-person team learning what's possible at the edge of generative AI.