Senior People Leader

Summary

Join a fast-growing, ambitious company as a commercially minded Senior People Leader to build and lead a high-impact People function. Lead a team and collaborate with leadership to create a people-first playbook that enhances company culture and drives business results. This role involves developing initiatives to improve the employee journey, leveraging technology for efficiency, and acting as a trusted advisor to leadership. The position requires extensive experience in People/HR, particularly in scaling startups, and strong leadership, communication, and analytical skills. It's a fully remote role with flexible workspace options and opportunities for professional growth within a dynamic, international team. The company offers a positive and collaborative work environment.

Requirements

• 10+ years of People/HR experience, preferably more - including at least 4 years in a scaling startup or high-growth environment (preferably post-Series A/B and either, B2B SaaS or Marketplace), have worked in a fully remote or globally distributed set up, in an environment with headcount in the range of 200 - 2000 FTE
• Proven leadership of a People function: You’ve built, significantly reorganised or significantly scaled People teams at least twice, balancing strategic vision with hands-on execution in a lean setting
• Deep commercial acumen: You understand P&L dynamics, organisational strategy, and seek to understand our business model to best translate business objectives into robust people strategies that unlock performance
• Exceptional communication & EQ: You’re a strong writer and speaker, comfortable influencing stakeholders at every level and fostering trust across diverse teams
• Analytical and strategic mindset: You leverage data to diagnose challenges, propose solutions, and measure outcomes without shying away from diving into spreadsheets or HRIS dashboards (or building them) yourself
• Operator/builder mentality: You relish ambiguity, enjoy crafting processes from first principles, and aren’t afraid to own both high-level strategy and detailed execution
• High standards and growth mindset: You push yourself (and others) to continuously improve, experiment with new ideas, and stay curious about best practices in people and culture
• Strong sense of ownership and resilience: You can thrive under autonomy, adapt quickly to change, and make confident decisions even when all information isn’t yet known
• You are willing to learn and open to accepting feedback, generously giving your own in return

Responsibilities

• Translate business goals into a performance-focused people strategy: Collaborate with founders and department heads to design organizational structures, talent priorities, and processes that attract high performers and empower them to excel in our fast-paced environment
• Partner on strategic talent planning and organisational design: Collaborate closely with our Senior Talent Partner and team leaders to align on future talent needs, assess skill gaps across the organisation, and prioritise hiring plans. Your role will focus on ensuring our organisational structure, capabilities, and operating rhythms are designed to support scalable, high-performing teams while enabling the Talent team to continue delivering excellence in execution
• Own the end-to-end employee journey: From high-impact onboarding experiences that set new hires up for success, to ongoing performance frameworks, entrepreneurial career paths, and compensation models, ensuring every stage drives peak performance and alignment with our values and North Star goals
• Maximize People team impact through automation and innovation: Leverage AI, tech stack optimizations, and process automation (HRIS, ATS, analytics) to amplify our lean team’s reach - enabling us to do more with existing resources while maintaining high standards
• Design for scalable impact, not just headcount: Build thoughtful structures and workflows that remove blockers, streamline collaboration, and enable every team to achieve more
• Be the central hub for all people-related challenges: Act as the trusted advisor for leadership and individual contributors alike - navigating complex employee relations, performance conversations, and strategic pivots with clarity and decisiveness
• Drive data-informed performance improvements: Define, track, and interpret key metrics (e.g., turnover risk indicators, time-to-impact for new hires, engagement signals) to continuously refine programs and ensure we’re enabling top-tier performance
• Partner across functions to unblock impact: Work closely with Finance, Legal and external partners to align Total Rewards, policies, and org designs with budget realities and regulatory demands - ensuring rapid decision-making without bureaucracy

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of the German legal system plus one other jurisdiction
• German language is a plus

Benefits

• This is a fully remote role so you can work from a permanent location (almost) anywhere within 2 hours of CET
• Flexible workspace options: if you’re based in Berlin, you’re welcome to join other Cargonauts at our office near Moritzplatz. In other cities, we provide coworking space access through Desana
• While we’re fully remote, we regularly bring the whole company together for offsites, where everyone meets in person to connect, collaborate, and tackle big challenges as a team