Senior HR Manager

PhoenixAI is the Agentic AI Database, purpose-built to give autonomous AI agents sub-second access to live enterprise data at massive scale. The platform unifies real-time and at-rest data in a single AI-native engine, combining the speed and concurrency that agentic workloads demand with the governance and deployment flexibility enterprises require to put AI into production. Formerly known as CelerData, PhoenixAI is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Learn more at phoenixdata.ai

Reports to: CEO
Key partners: VP of Finance; HRO (U.S. HR outsourcing partner)
Location: Menlo Park, CA, in-office at least four days per week
Employment type: Full-time
Team: Leads the U.S.-based People Experience and Recruiting team

About the role

This is PhoenixAI's first full-time HR leader in the U.S. You will build the company's HQ HR infrastructure and lead the U.S. people function for a growing company with teams in the U.S. and APAC. Your job is to set one standard for how PhoenixAI levels, pays, develops, and grows its people across the U.S. and APAC, and to make two teams operate as one company. You are a builder who sets the strategy and is also eager to roll up your sleeves and do much of the work yourself.

What you’ll do

Build one global people framework

• Create the job-leveling framework and title taxonomy used across the U.S.
• Partner with HR counterparts in APAC to align job leveling and compensation bands, benefits philosophy, and performance review cadence, while respecting statutory requirements and market norms in each jurisdiction.
• Build compensation bands and a single equity philosophy with the VP of Finance, designing and benchmarking OTE/MBO structure, new hire grants, refresh and promotion grants, and the annual refresh cycle
• Establish the performance review cycle, expectations, and documentation standard.
• Define promotion criteria and run calibration.
• Design the onboarding and offboarding experience.
• Build manager training around what it means to be an effective manager at PhoenixAI.

Grow the U.S. recruiting function

• Manage the U.S.-based recruiting team, who owns the hiring process end to end.
• Strengthen and scale in-house recruiting processes, practices, and tools, and grow the recruiting team as hiring demands.
• Partner with the VP of Finance and hiring managers to translate the headcount plan into a hiring roadmap, including the GTM hires the company has sequenced behind pipeline growth.
• Set interview standards and keep offers inside the comp bands.

Own the HRO partnership and HR systems

• Serve as the primary owner of the HRO relationship, which manages U.S. payroll, benefits administration and advisory, leave administration, compliance filings, the handbook, and the employee help desk. You set policy and direction, hold them to service levels, and resolve escalations.
• Handle sensitive employee relations matters and final people decisions directly.
• Own Rippling as the HR system of record, with the HRO supporting configuration. Build the people reporting that the founders and VP of Finance rely on.

Unite the U.S. and APAC (China & Singapore) teams culture

• Build programs, rituals, and communication that connect APAC engineering with the U.S. GTM, product, and engineering teams.
• Build connective tissue and a shared culture between our U.S. and APAC teams — helping the two groups work well together across time zones, language, and different working norms, and creating shared rituals and communication practices.

Partner across leadership

• CEO: people strategy, org design, culture, and the leadership team.
• VP of Finance: people budget, headcount planning, compensation, benefits cost, and HRO fees.
• APAC HR Partner: aligning leveling, comp bands, benefits philosophy, and performance cadence across the U.S., China, and Singapore while respecting local law and market norms. Also co-owning cross-regional culture programs, sharing employee relations issues that span across regions, and keeping global people data consistent.
• Executive leadership: trusted advisor on team design, hiring plans, performance, and organizational decisions, bringing both counsel and candor to senior conversations.
• Managers: coaching, performance, and employee relations.

What success looks like

First 90 days

• Take ownership of the HRO relationship and Rippling, with a clear scope split.
• Audit current policies, compensation, and titles across the U.S. and APAC.
• Assess recruiting processes with the recruiting team and set priorities.

Within 6 months

• Leveling, title taxonomy, comp bands, and the equity philosophy are approved and in use.
• A harmonized onboarding experience is live.
• The first performance review cycle has run on the new standard.

Within 12 months

• Promotions and calibration run on shared criteria across the U.S. and APAC.
• The OTE/MBO and variable comp structure is in place.
• Managers have completed training.
• Recruiting is scaling with the hiring plan.
• Employees in the U.S. and APAC describe working at one company rather than two.

Qualifications

• You have 7+ years in HR with broad generalist scope, including at least one stint as the first or founding HR leader at a venture-backed high-growth tech company.
• You have built leveling frameworks, comp bands, equity guidelines, and performance systems from scratch.
• You have led HR across more than one country, ideally the U.S. and China/Singapore, and harmonized policy, considering local requirements.
• You have managed a PEO or HRO partner and know where to delegate and where to stay hands-on.
• You have experience working with external employment counsel and know California employment law well.
• You have experience with Rippling or a similar HRIS.
• You have a solid grounding in recruiting and have managed or scaled a recruiting function.
• You are analytical and comfortable building headcount models with Finance.

Bonus: Professional proficiency in written and spoken Mandarin Chinese.

Every PhoenixAI hire is held to the same operating bar: own the outcome, seek truth and build trust, move fast with judgment, work AI-first, and raise the bar without ego.

Compensation

The base salary range for this role in the San Francisco Bay Area is $175,000 to $215,000 . The offer also includes equity and PhoenixAI's full benefits package. Where you land in the range depends on your experience, scope, and interview results.

PhoenixAI is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome candidates of all backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.