Head of People & Talent (Washington)

Reports to: CEO

Location: Washington, DC / Northern Virginia preferred; flexibility for the right candidate

The Opportunity

ANRA Technologies is entering its next phase of growth, scaling from 40 employees to 100+, and is looking for a hands-on Head of People & Talent to build the organization alongside the CEO and leadership team.

This is not a traditional corporate HR role. We are looking for a builder who can move seamlessly between strategy and execution—someone who can design the talent strategy required to scale globally while personally recruiting critical hires, solving day-to-day people issues, strengthening our culture, and putting the right systems and policies in place as we grow.

ANRA operates globally across the U.S., Europe and Asia, building technology at the intersection of aviation, autonomous systems and digital airspace. As the company grows from approximately 40 employees toward 100+, this leader will be responsible for ensuring we add exceptional talent without losing the speed, ownership, collaboration and entrepreneurial culture that got us here.

What You’ll Own

Build the team

• Talent acquisition will be the immediate priority.
• Partner directly with the CEO and functional leaders to translate ANRA’s growth plans into a hiring roadmap. Personally source, recruit and close priority technical, commercial and leadership hires while building scalable recruiting processes and talent pipelines globally.
• Establish the metrics and operating cadence needed to understand hiring progress, quality, speed and bottlenecks.

Build the People infrastructure for ANRA’s next stage

• Assess the current HR foundation and determine what needs to evolve as ANRA scales.
• Strengthen onboarding, performance management, compensation, benefits, policies, employee relations, compliance and the employee lifecycle.
• Create practical processes that managers and employees will actually use, selecting and managing systems and external partners where appropriate.
• The goal is not to introduce process for the sake of process. It is to build enough infrastructure to enable ANRA to scale quickly and responsibly.

Enable international growth

• Support hiring and employment across ANRA’s global footprint, including the U.S., UK/Europe and India.
• Partner effectively with local advisors and providers on employment practices, benefits, compliance, immigration and other country-specific requirements.
• Know what ANRA should build internally, what should be outsourced and when that answer needs to change as the company grows.
• Protect and intentionally scale our culture
• Partner with the CEO and leadership team to identify what is distinctive about ANRA’s culture and ensure those characteristics survive rapid growth.
• Build manager expectations, communication rhythms, onboarding and talent practices that reinforce accountability, speed, collaboration, innovation and ownership.
• Help ANRA remain entrepreneurial as the organization becomes larger and more complex.

Partner with the CEO and leadership team

• Serve as a trusted advisor on organizational design, workforce planning, leadership capability, compensation, performance, succession and difficult people decisions.
• Bring a strong point of view, challenge assumptions when appropriate, and move quickly from discussion to execution.
• Stay hands-on
• At ANRA’s size, there is no artificial distinction between strategic and tactical work.
• The Head of People & Talent owns the outcome and does whatever work is required to achieve it—from developing the long-term People strategy to sourcing a critical engineering candidate, resolving an employee issue, reviewing compensation data or rewriting a policy.

What We’re Looking For

• Approximately 10+ years of progressive People/HR experience, ideally including experience as the senior or near-senior People leader within a scaling technology company
• Demonstrated experience helping scale an organization through approximately the 30–150 employee stage
• Exceptional hands-on recruiting capability, particularly for software engineering/technical talent and senior commercial or leadership roles
• Experience recruiting and supporting employees internationally; UK/Europe and India experience is particularly valuable
• Broad HR capability across employee relations, performance, compensation, benefits, policies, compliance and organizational design
• Experience building People infrastructure from relatively little rather than simply administering mature systems
• Strong business orientation and comfort using data and metrics to make talent and organizational decisions
• Experience partnering directly with founders, CEOs and senior executives
• High judgment, low ego and strong interpersonal instincts
• Bias toward action and comfort operating with ambiguity
• Ability to introduce enough structure to enable scale without creating unnecessary bureaucracy
• Genuine willingness to personally execute—not simply manage the work of others

What Success Looks Like

In the first 90 days , you understand ANRA’s business, leadership team, culture and talent requirements; establish a clear hiring plan; personally take ownership of priority searches; assess the existing People infrastructure; and identify the most important gaps to address.

Within the first year, ANRA has materially strengthened its team, established repeatable recruiting and People processes, improved management infrastructure, and created a scalable foundation for international growth—without sacrificing the entrepreneurial culture and speed that define the company today.

Over the next several years, you will help build the organizational capability, leadership bench and People infrastructure required for ANRA to scale well beyond 100 employees globally.

Compensation

• Base salary: $135,000 to $150,000
• Equity: Eligible for meaningful equity participation
• Benefits: Competitive benefits package.