VP of People

VP of People

Location: Remote, US. Las Vegas, NV strongly preferred.

Company: Seeking.com, STNDRDS, and Standards.com (combined US operating organization)

Reports to: CEO

Type: Full-Time, Exempt

Compensation: $160,000 to $250,000 base plus profit share tied to demonstrated repeatable value.

About Us

Seeking.com is the world's largest premium dating platform, founded and led by an MIT alumnus and headquartered in Las Vegas. STNDRDS is our consumer media brand. Standards.com is our independent news publication. Together they form a combined US operating organization built on a single premise: we exist to create value for the people we serve, not to extract it from them.

We are 50 to 60 employees today, split between the Las Vegas office and remote roles across the country, and we expect to grow past 100 in the next twelve months. Even at a billion dollars in revenue, we intend to stay relatively small. AI leverage plus constant adaptation lets us. Our growth comes from making sure the people we have are the right people, operating at 10x or 100x of what a conventional role produces.

The Opportunity

This is a strategic partner role to the founder. You will design and operationalize the People systems that make this company structurally different from most others. It is a job for a mid-career operator who has been thinking about the intersection of human psychology and systems design for years and wants a place to build the answer.

You will help design and run three things most companies do not attempt:

The Value Creator System. An ownership model where operators earn profit share based on demonstrated repeatable value, not tenure or title. You help design the mechanics: how contribution to revenue, margin, and strategic outcomes gets measured, how the pool is allocated, how the model attracts and holds the right people.

The Certainty Framework. An operating philosophy that creates the conditions for eustress (voluntary striving toward something you care about) and eliminates structural sources of distress. Every domain you own is filtered through its eight principles: transparency, simplicity, present-focus, immediate feedback, sufficiency, optionality, cooperation, identity decoupling.

The 10x Operating Principle. Growth through leverage per person, not through headcount. The default question is not 'what am I supposed to do' but 'what am I actually trying to accomplish, and what is the most leveraged way to do it.' This gets built into hiring, onboarding, performance, management, and compensation. It cannot be delegated to a training initiative.

Who We Are Looking For

You are a mid-career superstar with startup or high-growth experience. Not a career HR executive from a large public company. Not an inheritor of finished programs. A builder.

You are passionate about human psychology and systems design mixed into one. That combination is what you think about in your free time, not just what you have learned on the job.

You already know how to measure productivity accurately in an environment where AI is redefining output per person. You already have a diagnostic framework for underperformance: is this an employee issue and if so what specifically, is it a manager issue and if so what specifically, what is the root cause, and what is the solution. You do not arrive at these problems cold.

You use AI in your practice today. You have a considered view on what an AI-native organization actually is (not one where everyone has a subscription, but one where the way work is designed has been rethought around what AI makes possible).

You have distributed workforce experience at scale. Not remote-friendly. Actually remote.

An Organizational Psychology, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, or behavioral science background is a strong plus. The academic training in these fields maps unusually well onto how we think about designing work.

You put mission before money. Profit share when the value shows, not guaranteed comp regardless of outcome. If a candidate reads this and reacts with 'but where is the equity story,' they are not the person.

What You Will Own

People Strategy Across the Combined Organization

Set and execute the People agenda for Seeking, STNDRDS, and Standards. Every initiative connects to a measurable outcome. Own org design, workforce planning, and visibility into org health, team dynamics, and manager effectiveness.

Operating Model and Leverage

Own the human side of how work actually gets done. Redesign hiring bars to screen for the 'always ask' mindset. Rebuild onboarding as a cultural install. Reward leverage over volume in performance systems. Anchor annual planning in outcomes, not headcount. Build honest, dignified off-ramps for people who cannot make the shift. Model the behavior in the People function itself: run it lean and leveraged.

Selection Design and Structural Design

Two mandates that run together. Selection filters for mission-first, performance-driven, leverage-minded operators who volunteer to strive because they care about the work. It is also an active turn-off for people motivated by title, money, or the appearance of contribution. Structural design keeps the raw material selection produces from burning out: sufficiency (a real floor), identity decoupling (worth not fused to outcomes), immediate feedback (uncertainty stays low), and optionality (leaving is dignified and possible). Both jobs are yours. They are not the same job.

The Value Creator System, Operationalized

Help design and run the mechanics that turn the model from document to practice. Value-points measurement (how contribution to revenue, margin, and strategic outcomes gets scored), profit share allocation and vesting, and the trust-holdings model.

Compensation Architecture

Own the compensation model for the combined organization. Salary covers the present. Profit share pays out on demonstrated repeatable value. Design and defend the base pay structure, benefits, and the profit share design and rollout. Build a compensation system a candidate can read in one sitting and understand exactly how they will be paid and why.

Performance Philosophy and Feedback

The Certainty Framework rejects annual reviews, stack rankings, and identity-fused evaluation. Design what replaces them: continuous, lightweight feedback close to the work; observation framed as observation and not verdict; inputs measured alongside outputs; growth as the metric rather than position in a hierarchy of judgment. Design, pilot, and land it.

Manager Excellence

Managers are the primary lever. Build a manager excellence program grounded in the framework: leader as gardener, evaluated on the conditions they create rather than the outcomes they extract. Real curriculum, not a workshop.

Employee Lifecycle and Talent Development

Own the full lifecycle from acceptance through departure. Complete and scale onboarding. Build stay interviews, career conversations, internal mobility, and offboarding that treats exit as dignified. Build the learning philosophy, career path frameworks, succession planning foundation, and the Associates Program for early-career talent.

Distributed Operating Model

Own the systems that make a remote-plus-Vegas company work. Assume this is solved in principle and unsolved in practice at most companies. Solve it here.

Employer Brand and Recruiting

Partner with Talent Acquisition to attract the right people at scale. Shape how the combined organization presents itself. Ensure recruiting processes and candidate experience reflect what this company actually is.

Team Leadership

Lead and grow a small People team. Make the case for future hires (HR Coordinator and Training & Development Partner) and make those hires with the same rigor you expect from every hiring manager. Model the management standards you are asking the rest of the company to build.

Qualifications

Required

• 8+ years of progressive People or HR leadership, including 3+ years at Director or Head-of-People level.
• Built People systems from scratch in startup or high-growth environments, not inherited finished programs.
• Deep expertise across compensation design, performance philosophy, talent development, org design, and employee lifecycle.
• Designed and launched a manager development program, not just training sessions.
• Strong analytical capability and executive presence in a founder-led environment.
• Active AI proficiency plus a considered view of what AI-native actually means for how work is designed.
• Distributed workforce experience at scale.
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, Psychology, or a related field.

Preferred

• Master's or doctoral training in Organizational Psychology, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, or behavioral science.
• Experience designing compensation models that include profit share or other outcome-based structures.
• Experience in technology, high-growth, or premium consumer environments.

Compensation

Base is $160,000 to $250,000, commensurate with experience. This is the floor, not the ceiling.

Salary covers the present. Profit share rewards demonstrated repeatable value. If you deliver, total compensation is significantly larger than the base. If you do not, you are still paid a good salary for good work. That trade is deliberate. It is the same trade we ask every value creator in this company to accept.

Full benefits include health, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k), generous PTO, and a fully remote environment.

Seeking.com is an equal opportunity employer.

Seeking.com. Where Extraordinary People Find Extraordinary Love.