HR Business Partner

Here at Humanoid, we believe in a future where robots amplify human potential. That’s why we’ve set out on a mission to build the world’s most capable, commercially-scalable, and safe humanoid robots. We’re bringing that mission to life with HMND‑01 Alpha - our rapidly developed humanoid platform now running in real industrial pilots - and we’re growing the team to take it even further.

As the HR Business Partner, you will partner day-to-day with leaders across Engineering, Hardware, and Software to strengthen manager capability, improve org effectiveness, and build scalable people practices for a deep-tech environment. You’ll be a trusted advisor on everything from performance to employee relations and culture balancing speed, rigor, and fairness.

You will be closely working with our Chief HR, operating as a key partner in shaping and delivering the people strategy for the technical organisation.

This is a hands-on role: equal parts strategic partner and operator.

• Serve as the primary HR partner for Engineering, Hardware, and Software leaders.

• Help technical leaders navigate scale moments (new layers, new managers, evolving leadership expectations).

• Coach technical managers on setting expectations and operating rhythms (goals, execution cadence, feedback loops).

• Support performance differentiation (high/medium/low performance) and ensure managers address issues early and fairly.

• Enable consistent, high-quality 1:1s, feedback, and career conversations.

• Partner with leaders to evolve career frameworks/levels for technical roles (e.g., SWE, robotics, embedded, firmware, electrical, mechanical).

• Clarify dual tracks (IC vs management), promotion readiness, and growth expectations.

• Spot retention risks in critical technical roles and implement targeted plans.

• Support leaders through difficult moments with empathy, directness, and legal/compliance awareness.

• Align with Talent Acquisition on technical hiring strategy, interview process health, candidate experience, and hiring manager enablement.

• Partner with People Ops to ensure smooth execution of core people processes and a strong employee experience.

• 7+ years of proven HRBP experience supporting technical teams (Engineering, Hardware, Software, AI/ML).

• Strong capability in org design, workforce planning, manager coaching, performance management, and employee relations.

• Comfort operating in ambiguity and driving clarity in fast-moving environments.

• High judgment with an ability to balance empathy with high standards.

• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and influence skills.

• Strong execution skills: able to run cycles, manage detail, and deliver consistently.

• Experience in deep-tech, robotics, embedded systems, or hardware + software organisations.

• Experience building or refining leveling frameworks and IC/manager career tracks.

• Familiarity with engineering operating models (on-call, incident management, postmortems).

• Competitive equity: stock options with meaningful upside as we scale.

• 30+ paid days off, including 23 days of annual leave, all UK bank holidays, and additional company closure days (including Christmas–New Year shutdown).

• Private healthcare, including virtual and in-person care.

• Pension scheme with 8% total contribution (5% employee, 3% employer) on full earnings.

• Free daily breakfast, catered lunch, and snacks in-office.

• Work at the frontier - collaborate daily with world-class engineers, researchers, and product experts building the next generation of AI and humanoid robotics.

• Real ownership - direct access to founding leadership, meaningful input on product direction, and the ability to drive key initiatives from day one.