Head of People

The Head of People is responsible for building Kira into a company where exceptional people can do the best work of their careers, while ensuring the organization can scale rapidly with clarity, velocity, and strong cultural foundations.

This is a company-shaping role. The Head of People will ensure Kira’s ambitions are matched by an organization that can execute: with the right people in the right roles, clear expectations, and a culture that rewards ownership, rigor, and care for learners.

This role owns the full people system at Kira: talent acquisition, onboarding, performance management, growth and development, compensation, culture, and compliance. The Head of People partners closely with the CEO and leadership team to translate Kira’s mission into how teams are built, how decisions are made, and how success is defined.

• Develop and own Kira’s people strategy in alignment with company goals and stage of growth.

• Design an organizational structure that scales, with clear roles, decision rights, and accountability.

• Anticipate future talent and capability needs as Kira expands across functions and geographies.

• Ensure people practices reinforce Kira’s culture and long-term mission.

• Build a high-quality, scalable hiring engine that attracts mission-aligned talent.

• Define what “great” looks like for roles across engineering, product, learning, sales, partnerships, and operations.

• Create structured, fair, and efficient hiring processes that scale with volume.

• Partner with leaders to raise the hiring bar while maintaining speed and strong candidate experience.

• Establish clear performance expectations, goal-setting frameworks, and feedback loops.

• Support managers in becoming strong people leaders through tools, coaching, and clear standards.

• Design career paths and development opportunities that retain top talent and enable internal mobility.

• Ensure underperformance is addressed thoughtfully, consistently, and decisively.

• Codify and steward Kira’s culture as the company grows.

• Translate values into concrete behaviors, rituals, and decision-making norms.

• Design onboarding experiences that integrate new hires quickly and effectively.

• Build systems that support engagement, and inclusion without unnecessary bureaucracy.

• Design compensation, equity, and benefits programs that are competitive, equitable, and stage-appropriate.

• Ensure compliance with employment laws across current and future geographies.

• Own core people operations including payroll, HRIS, policies, and documentation.

• Build scalable processes that support growth while maintaining operational rigor.

• 8–12+ years of experience leading People, HR, or Talent functions, including significant time in high-growth startups or scale-ups.

• Demonstrated experience designing and operating people systems that scale, including org design, headcount planning, hiring, performance management, and compensation frameworks.

• Proven ability to partner with founders and executive teams on company strategy, translating business goals into talent and organizational plans.

• Experience building organizational structures and operating models that support rapid growth while maintaining clarity, accountability, and speed.

• Strong hands-on operator who is comfortable personally running hiring processes, fixing broken systems, and building new processes from scratch.

• Track record of enabling strong management through clear expectations, performance standards, and effective feedback mechanisms.

• Ability to make and execute difficult people decisions with sound judgment, balancing empathy with high performance standards.
  High degree of ownership, rigor, and decisiveness in ambiguous and fast-changing environments.

• Clear, direct communicator with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization.

Within 12–18 months:

• Kira has a clearly designed organizational structure with well-defined roles, ownership, and decision rights that support the company’s growth strategy.

• Hiring is a predictable, high-quality system with clear headcount planning, strong signal at every stage, and minimal dependence on the CEO or founders.

• Managers operate with consistent expectations, performance standards, and feedback practices, enabling faster execution and better decision-making.

• People systems (hiring, performance, compensation, and development) are operating smoothly and supporting speed, accountability, and high performance.

• Culture is codified and reinforced through how the company hires, evaluates performance, promotes, and makes tradeoffs — remaining strong and resilient as the team scales.

• Leadership spends less time firefighting people issues and more time focused on strategy and execution.

Salary Range: $200,000 – $250,000 USD base salary, depending on experience and location, plus meaningful equity and benefits.