About the RoleWe're looking for a Senior People Operations Manager who can own that infrastructure end to end: build (some of) it, run it, and improve it without needing to be told what's broken. This is a highly autonomous role. You'll be trusted to identify gaps, prioritize what matters, and execute with minimal oversight. It also demands real attention to detail: payroll, compliance, and employee data don't tolerate sloppiness, and small errors here erode trust fast. And it requires a sense of urgency: when someone's leave, pay, or onboarding is on the line, "eventually" isn't good enough!
Every process you build touches a real person's experience of working at Sofar. This role is as much about protecting the culture and wellness of every Sofarer as it is about operational excellence.
Key Responsibilities- HR Infrastructure & Technology: Own and optimize our HR systems (Rippling, Ashby, Slack, and related tools), ensuring data integrity, building automation where manual work creates friction, and producing People analytics leadership can actually use.
- Compliance & Risk Management: Maintain rigorous compliance with federal, California, and San Francisco labor law (FMLA/CFRA, SF HCSO, FLSA). Lead audit readiness, including SOC 2 or SOX documentation as needed.
- Total Rewards & Payroll: Partner with finance and external vendors on payroll processing, benefits administration, and open enrollment, catching discrepancies before they become problems.
- Employee Lifecycle & Operations: Run onboarding, internal mobility, leaves of absence, and off-boarding cleanly and consistently. Support the ongoing transition of our international team members to direct-hire employment as we stand up new entities abroad.
- Process Optimization: Continuously look for administrative friction and remove it. Draft clear SOPs and keep the employee handbook current, treating documentation as a way to make the People function more autonomous, not less.
Required Qualifications- Experience: 6+ years of progressive HR experience, with at least 3 years focused specifically on People Operations, ideally in a fast-growing startup environment.
- Location: Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, able to be onsite at Pier 28 4 days/week.
- Technical Skills: Advanced administrator experience with modern HR platforms (Rippling, Ashby, Slack, or similar) and strong Excel/Google Sheets skills for data analysis.
- Legal Knowledge: Deep working knowledge of California employment law, wage-and-hour rules, and leave administration.
- Education/Certifications: Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, or a related field. SHRM-SCP or SPHR is a plus, not a requirement.
- What we need most: someone who takes ownership without hand-holding, sweats the details that others miss, moves with urgency, and genuinely cares about the day-to-day experience of the people around them.
What We Offer- Competitive base salary ($130,000-$155,000) + equity
- Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance
- Learning and development stipend
- Flexible PTO, plus one company-wide office closure week
- Catered onsite lunches
- Flexible working hours (in some cases, lets chat!)
