Team Mission:

The mission of the People team is to make Shiftsmart the place where the best talent in the market chooses to build their career, and does their best work once they're here. That means finding and hiring people who raise our talent density, getting them productive and embedded in our ways of working fast, and building the systems (performance management, career growth, feedback) that keep our best people learning, growing, and staying. As Shiftsmart scales headcount, this leader will be responsible for building the people infrastructure including, recruiting capability, onboarding, and performance/retention systems that help us hire and retain a workforce that matches the ambition of the business, without sacrificing our talent bar or our culture.

This role is based in New York City (HQ) with typically 4+ days per week in the office.

Outcomes:

This leader owns three outcomes end to end: (1) the quality and speed of who we hire, (2) how successfully new hires ramp into Shiftsmart's ways of working, and (3) whether our best people grow and stay. They lead the recruiting team directly and act as the architect of the systems - interviewer training, onboarding programs, performance review cycles - that make hiring and retention repeatable rather than dependent on any one person's instincts. Like all managers at Shiftsmart, they operate as a player-coach: leading a team as leverage, while staying close enough to the data and the day-to-day to personally solve the biggest problems when needed. This person will work cross functionally to drive outcomes partnering closely with hiring managers and functional leaders across the company.

Responsibilities will include:

• Own talent acquisition end to end. Lead and develop the recruiting team, own hiring funnel metrics (time-to-fill, quality of hire, offer-accept rate) across the business, and be accountable when they improve or slip.
• Raise our talent bar. Design and run interviewer training that improves how the company assesses candidates - structured interview kits, calibrated scorecards, debrief practices - so we continue to raise the bar across interviewers and teams.
• Build onboarding that sticks. Develop and continuously improve onboarding materials and programs that get new hires productive, fast, and fluent in Shiftsmart's Operating Principles, tools, and ways of working - measured by early-tenure performance and retention.
• Run performance management. Own ongoing improvement and execution of performance review cycles (goal-setting, calibration, ratings, feedback) that reward performance and drive development in a way that's clear, simple and easy to understand.
• Drive retention as a system, not a reaction. Identify where and why we lose good people, and build the programs (career pathing, manager effectiveness, engagement feedback loops) that fix root causes before they show up as regretted attrition.
• Lead with data. Build and use people analytics (funnel conversion, ramp time, performance distribution, attrition/retention by segment) to diagnose problems, prioritize the highest-leverage initiatives, and prove impact.
• Manage and develop the recruiting team. Lead by doing. You'll need a deep enough understanding of the pipeline, process, and data to solve problems alongside your team, while upskilling direct reports and pushing them to own larger pieces of the funnel over time.

Competencies:

Do you have what it takes to build the people systems that let Shiftsmart scale? Here are the attributes you'll need:

• First-Principles Thinker: You don't need a traditional talent or HR background - you might come from finance, consulting, ops, or general management. What matters is that you can take a fuzzy problem (why do people leave in month three? what actually makes onboarding stick?), reason through it from scratch, and build the answer yourself rather than importing someone else's playbook.
• Builder of Solutions, Not Just Processes: You think in terms of scalable systems that address the root cause, not one-off fixes. Whether or not you've built onboarding programs or performance cycles before, you know how to design something repeatable once you understand the problem.
• Self Starter: You're comfortable taking initiative and consistently delivering results in fast-paced, ambiguous environments. You don't wait to be told what to do, you identify the problem, build the plan, and get to work.
• Technical & Data-Driven: You use data to diagnose people problems (funnel conversion, ramp time, attrition) and prioritize accordingly. You're comfortable in Excel/Sheets and modern HRIS/ATS tooling, and you leverage AI tools to work more efficiently.
• Player-Coach: You lead a team, but you're not above doing the work yourself - running an interview loop, rewriting an onboarding doc, or personally diagnosing why a cohort is churning - when that's the highest-leverage thing you can do.
• Direct Communicator: You give and receive feedback candidly and kindly, and you're comfortable telling hiring managers and leadership uncomfortable truths about hiring quality, ramp, or attrition.

Compensation philosophy

To provide greater transparency we share base salary ranges, which are based on role and level benchmarked against similar stage, high growth companies. Offers are determined based on multiple factors including skills, work experience, and relevant credentials.

In addition to competitive salaries and meaningful equity we offer the following benefits:

• Comprehensive healthcare coverage: We cover 100% of employee premiums for medical, dental, and vision care (60-75% for dependents)
• 401(k) match program: We match 100% on the first 3% of your contributions and 50% on the next 2% for a maximum match of 4%
• Generous, fully paid parental and family leave policies
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• Collaborative office with fully stocked kitchen @ 1 World Trade in Manhattan