Senior Manager, People Operations

Linden Lab develops platforms that empower people to create, connect, and thrive through transformative virtual experiences. Since 1999, we’ve been at the forefront of the creator economy, building durable spaces for limitless imagination, self-expression, and human connection. In 2003, we launched Second Life, a vibrant, user-driven virtual world that has grown into a global community with over two billion user creations and a flourishing $650 million economy. People build relationships, express themselves, create together, and, for those who choose, build real livelihoods through their creativity. Unlike traditional social media, Second Life fosters sustained connection between strangers and offers mobility, agency, belonging, collaboration, and shared purpose to people whose real-world circumstances may limit their options. For many, it is not just a platform, but a place to participate fully and authentically. At Linden Lab, the same principles that shape our communities guide how we work together. We value diverse perspectives, strengths-based leadership, and the belief that we do our best work together. You’ll join a thoughtful, mission-driven team where you can grow, contribute meaningfully, and help shape technology with real social impact. We invite you to come as you are. Work Location This role requires working onsite in our San Francisco office for full workdays Monday through Thursday. Employees have the flexibility to work remotely or from the office on Fridays as part of their regular five day workweek. Your Mission We’re looking for a Senior Manager, People Operations to take ownership of the day-to-day work that powers the employee experience and keep raising the bar for how we deliver it. Reporting to our Director, People & Culture, you’ll lead the operational work while helping us continually improve how it gets done. We believe the best People teams create leverage. Our impact isn’t measured by how much work flows through our team, but by how much easier we make it for the organization to operate effectively. We remove friction, create clarity, and build systems that help people move faster, make better decisions, and focus on high value work. You won’t be joining a team that needs convincing to challenge an existing process or try a new approach. We want you to question what exists, improve it, and bring us the ideas we haven’t thought of yet. How You’ll Grow With Us You’ll sharpen your judgment and expand how you think about People Operations work by partnering with a team that challenges the status quo, asks why, and expects you to bring your own point of view. You’ll learn to move quickly without sacrificing thoughtfulness, question established approaches, and turn better ideas into better ways of working. From the start, you’ll gain exposure to the thinking behind organizational priorities and People decisions, working closely with senior People leaders and participating in strategy conversations. You’ll build experience navigating the harder parts of the work, where there isn’t always an obvious answer and judgment, empathy, business context, and employee experience all have to be weighed together. You’ll also deepen your capabilities in AI, automation, workflow design, systems, and integrations, with the support and room to experiment, test new approaches, and turn your ideas into improvements you can actually see. The Impact You’ll Drive Run the day-to-day People Operations function, owning operational execution and ensuring the work is accurate, timely, compliant, and delivers a consistently high-quality employee experience. Lead payroll administration and the execution of approved compensation changes across our multi-state workforce, maintaining strong controls and resolving issues quickly and accurately. Oversee and execute benefits, retirement plan, employee leave, and workers’ compensation administration, balancing technical precision and compliance with an experience that makes complex programs easier for employees to navigate. Lead the employee lifecycle from pre-onboarding through offboarding, bringing together systems, logistics, communications, manager readiness, employee changes, and key milestones to create a seamless, high-quality experience. Drive continuous improvement across the function, using systems thinking, data, and feedback to identify root causes, simplify complexity, strengthen self-service, and design out recurring problems. Design and build automated workflows that eliminate unnecessary manual work, improve handoffs, prevent errors, and create leverage across the People function, turning opportunities for automation into working solutions. Optimize our People systems, including Paylocity, maintaining exceptional data integrity and finding better ways for our technology, data, and workflows to work together. Develop and analyze People metrics, dashboards, and reporting to surface workforce trends, employee insights, emerging risks, and opportunities, translating data into actionable recommendations for People leadership. Drive recurring compliance and audit work, including retirement plan administration, worker classification, payroll and state tax requirements, employee records, and other regulatory obligations, translating changing requirements into reliable processes and controls. Advise employees and managers on policies, benefits, leaves, performance processes, and day-to-day employee matters, applying strong judgment and recognizing when an issue requires broader People leadership involvement. Hire, manage, and develop a People Operations team member, building their expertise, judgment, confidence, and ownership while creating strong shared context, cross-training, and continuity across the function. Proactively surface meaningful trends, risks, decisions, and progress to People leadership, bringing the right context and thoughtful recommendations so leaders have what they need to make informed decisions. Shape broader People initiatives and strategy through your functional expertise, data, and proximity to the work, helping us build programs, systems, and employee experiences that are as strong in execution as they are in design. How You’ll Shape Our Future At Linden, we celebrate all dimensions of diversity, including diversity of experience. 7+ years of progressive People Operations experience, with deep, hands-on expertise across payroll, benefits, leaves, compliance, HR systems, and the employee lifecycle, including experience supporting a multi-state workforce and strong knowledge of California requirements. 3+ years of experience directly managing and developing others, with the ability to create clarity, build capability and judgment, delegate meaningful ownership, and maintain a consistently high bar for the work. A systems-thinking mindset and a track record of looking beyond the immediate task to understand root causes, dependencies, downstream impacts, and opportunities to build better ways of working. Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively across the organization and manage up by anticipating what leaders need to know, proactively surfacing relevant context, progress, and risks, and bringing thoughtful recommendations. Demonstrated experience designing and building process automations and workflows that meaningfully change how work gets done, using automation, AI, integrations, or no-code/low-code tools to reduce manual effort, prevent errors, and create leverage. Strong analytical and program management skills, with the ability to use data to spot patterns and inform decisions while bringing structure to complex, cross-functional work and driving it through successful implementation. Exceptional execution capacity and a strong sense of urgency. You can manage a high volume of work and competing priorities, keep things moving, close loops, and maintain a high bar for accuracy and quality along the way. Exceptional resourcefulness and self-directed learning skills. You know how to get yourself up to speed, find the right information, learn unfamiliar systems and requirements, and confidently jump into problems you haven’t encountered before. We’ll help you learn Linden’s context and ways of working; you’ll bring the functional expertise to take it from there. Excellent judgment, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, develop a point of view, make sound decisions within your scope, and recognize when something genuinely requires escalation. High emotional intelligence and discretion, particularly when helping employees navigate sensitive or complex situations. A continuous-improvement mindset and genuine curiosity about new tools, practices, and possibilities. You’re energized by making things better and expect your own skills and the systems around you to keep evolving. The Fine Print Pay Transparency Notice Linden Lab’s Total Rewards philosophy is rooted in fairness, equity, and an unbiased approach to compensation, paired with competitive benefits across all locations where we operate. For this San Francisco Bay Area-based role, the salary range is $150,000 - $203,000, and Linden Lab hires new employees at the midpoint of this range ($176,500). This midpoint represents the amount the company reasonably expects to pay upon hire. Base salary is the only form of cash compensation for this role; it does not include variable or bonus pay. In addition to base pay, employees are eligible to be considered for awards under our Equity Incentive Plan (EIP) and receive a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, and 401(k) plans. Our talent partners will provide more details during the hiring process. Essential Role Functions & Work Environment Perform focused, computer-based tasks and collaborate effectively with coworkers in a dynamic, in-office environment. While some remote collaboration may occur, in-office presence is an essential requirement of this role to foster creativity, teamwork, and spontaneous problem-solving. Communicate clearly and effectively through typing, using hands and fingers for keyboard tasks. Maintain the ability to sit, stand, or remain stationary for extended periods (up to eight hours) during calls, meetings, or collaborative sessions, with ergonomic workstations and tools provided. Sustain prolonged attention on a computer monitor to perform tasks requiring visual focus and attention to detail. Operate office equipment and handle materials as needed for presentations, discussions, or team activities. Move freely around the office to attend meetings, participate in team activities, and contribute to shared responsibilities, supporting a collaborative and engaging workplace culture. Travel may be required for business meetings, team summits, or company events, where in-person participation is an essential part of the role to foster collaboration, alignment, and engagement. Our Commitment to Equal Opportunity At Linden Lab, we know that great work can't happen without a diverse team and an inclusive environment. That’s why we intentionally seek out individuals with a wide range of strengths, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe this diversity gives us a competitive advantage, helping us better serve our residents, support one another, and grow both as Lindens and as individuals. We celebrate and value diversity in all its forms, including differences in thought, race, national origin, culture, age, experience, religion, economic and social status, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, and disability. Fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging empowers us to create and share meaningful experiences, both within our team and across the virtual communities we serve. We invite candidates from all backgrounds to apply and help shape the future of virtual experiences. Global Data Privacy Notice Your privacy is important to us. Depending on your location, laws such as the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) may govern how we handle and process the personal data of job applicants. To learn more, please review our full notice detailing how applicant data is collected, used, and protected in applicable regions. By submitting your application, you consent to the processing of your data in accordance with applicable laws and our privacy practices. #J-18808-Ljbffr