People Business Partner

People Business Partner

San Francisco, California, United States

Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform company, led by technologist and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal (founder of AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco for $3.7B). Harness has raised approximately $570M in funding and is valued at $5.5B, backed by leading investors including Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, Citi Ventures, and more. As AI accelerates code creation, the real bottleneck has shifted to everything after the code – testing, deployments, application security, reliability, compliance, and cost optimization. Harness brings AI and automation to this "outer loop," helping teams ship software faster while maintaining security and governance throughout the entire software delivery lifecycle.

Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the Harness Platform applies deep context and intelligent automation across the software delivery lifecycle with governance and policy-driven controls embedded throughout the platform.

Over the past year, Harness powered over 185M deployments, 82M builds, 18T flag evaluations, 8M security scans, 9.1B optimized tests, 3T protected API calls, and helped manage $2.8B in cloud spend — enabling customers like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels to accelerate releases by up to 75%, reduce cloud costs by up to 60%, and achieve 10x DevOps efficiency.

With a global team across 26 offices and 25 countries, Harness is shaping the future of AI software delivery — and we're looking for exceptional talent to help us move even faster.

Position Summary

We're seeking a People Business Partner (PBP) to support leaders in the United States in a high-growth global tech environment. This role is focused on organizational effectiveness, leadership capability, talent planning, and performance management. We are looking for someone who is willing to roll up their sleeves to get things done and to help build and scale high performing teams in an engaged culture.

You'll work alongside the Global People Business Partners and senior leaders to translate business priorities into people strategies and programs that scale, ensuring we attract, develop, and retain top talent.

Key Responsibilities

You'll work alongside a PBP team covering Go To Market, Engineering and G&A organizations, collaborating on program design, methodology, and shared people initiatives.

Strategic Business Partnership

• Provide coaching to managers on critical people-related dimensions, including performance management, team dynamics, career development, and employee retention and engagement.
• Provide data-driven insights on workforce trends, retention signals, and talent risks within your client group(s)
• Support organizational changes including team growth, restructuring, and manager transitions.

Employee Relations & First Line Support

• Act as the primary point of contact for employee relations matters across your assigned client groups, including ER cases, performance concerns, PIPs, and exits
• Conduct exit interviews and synthesize themes for leaders and the broader People team
• In partnership with the Legal team, support managing investigations, disciplinary actions, and grievances with discretion and sound judgment
• Ensure compliance with federal and state employment laws; partner with Legal on complex cases and risk mitigation

Talent & Performance

• Execute cyclical People programs including mid-year reviews, year-end performance cycles, quarterly talent sales reviews, and compensation planning cycles
• Own communications and project management for these programs
• Partner with Total Rewards, L&D, and People Operations to ensure global programs are implemented with consistency.
• Support talent planning and succession conversations; surface risks and themes upward to the Senior PBPs

Innovation & Scale

• Build and maintain AI-powered agents and automated workflows for repeatable HR tasks to allow for higher-value work
• Create self-serve employee resources, templates, and toolkits to reduce high-volume inquiry load.

Collaboration & Operations

• Partner closely with People Operations, Total Rewards, Workplace, and Learning & Development teams on cross-functional projects and initiatives
• Contribute to team-wide People initiatives as a peer alongside other PBPs — sharing methodology, tools, and project work
• Support consistent application of global People programs with thoughtful, locally relevant execution

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years of People Business Partner experience
• Experience supporting teams within a global organization preferred
• Proven ability to influence front-line and mid-level managers and manage ambiguity
• Experience in tech, SaaS, or high-growth environments preferred
• Excellent communication, judgment, and problem-solving skills
• Has experimented with building AI-assisted workflows

Work Location

• San Francisco, CA - Hybrid

Pay transparency

$145,000 - $165,000 USD

Harness In The News:

• Accelerating Our Mission to Bring AI to Everything After Code
• Goldman Sachs Leads Investment in Software Delivery Startup Harness at $5.5 Billion Valuation
• How Harness Runs 16 "Startups Within A Startup" at Scale | Jyoti Bansal
• Harness Research Shows AI Visibility Crisis Fueling Security Nightmare
• Harness Has Been Named to the Inc. Power Partner List for Software Delivery Success

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Note on Fraudulent Recruiting/Offers

We have become aware that there may be fraudulent recruiting attempts being made by people posing as representatives of Harness. These scams may involve fake job postings, unsolicited emails, or messages claiming to be from our recruiters or hiring managers.

Please note, we do not ask for sensitive or financial information via chat, text, or social media, and any email communications will come from the domain @harness.io. Additionally, Harness will never ask for any payment, fee to be paid, or purchases to be made by a job applicant. All applicants are encouraged to apply directly to our open jobs via our website. Interviews are generally conducted via Zoom video conference unless the candidate requests other accommodations.

If you believe that you have been the target of an interview/offer scam by someone posing as a representative of Harness, please do not provide any personal or financial information and contact us immediately at View email address on click.appcast.io. You can also find additional information about this type of scam and report any fraudulent employment offers via the Federal Trade Commission's website ( or you can contact your local law enforcement agency.