Senior HR Business Partner

Role Description

Deepgram is seeking a Senior HR Business Partner for a fixed-term contract to provide maternity leave coverage for approximately 4 months. Stepping into this established HRBP role, you will partner closely with leaders at all levels and employees across the company to maintain continuity in employee relations, performance management, manager effectiveness, and people practices during this period.

Reporting to the Head of People, the HRBP works cross-functionally with leaders, People Ops, Legal, Finance, and Recruiting to ensure people programs, policies, and processes remain effective, compliant, and aligned with business needs. This role requires someone who can onboard quickly, hit the ground running, and provide stable, high-quality HR partnership with minimal ramp-up time.

Occasional travel may be required to attend company offsite or team meetings as needed during the contract period.

What You’ll Do:

• Employee Relations & Manager Support:
  • Serve as the primary point of contact for employee relations matters, including performance concerns, interpersonal issues, investigations, and complex workplace scenarios.
  • Coach managers through difficult conversations, feedback delivery, performance management, and documentation.
  • Provide consistent, fair, and legally sound guidance across key employee lifecycle moments.
• Business & Leadership Partnership:
  • Act as a trusted advisor to leaders on people-related risks, decisions, and trade-offs.
  • Partner with the Head of People to maintain alignment between company strategy and people practices.
  • Identify patterns and systemic issues early and recommend practical, upstream interventions.
  • Serve as a change partner to leaders, helping operationalize organizational changes to drive understanding, adoption, and trust.
• Performance & Manager Effectiveness:
  • Support ongoing performance management processes, goal-setting, feedback cycles, and manager capability building.
  • Partner with leaders on team structure, talent planning, and ways of working that enable strong performance.
  • Help managers navigate underperformance, role clarity challenges, and organizational change.
  • Reinforce a culture of high performance without unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Process, Systems & Scale:
  • Maintain and apply existing People processes, templates, documentation, and manager resources.
  • Partner on tools and workflows that improve consistency, efficiency, and employee experience.
  • Balance compliance, speed, and sound judgment as the company continues to grow.
  • Support change initiatives (e.g., policy updates, process shifts), including re-education, leader enablement, and reinforcement.
• Compliance & Administration:
  • Partner with People Ops, Legal, and Finance to ensure compliance with federal, state, local, and international employment laws.
  • Support leave administration, policy application, and complex employee situations.
  • Help ensure People practices remain defensible, consistent, and aligned with company values.
• Immigration & Mobility support:
  • Serve as the primary HR point of contact for immigration matters, partnering with recruiters to assess visa needs and timelines during the hiring process.
  • Manage the day-to-day relationship with the external immigration law firm.
  • Support employees through immigration processes (H-1B, transfers, green card sponsorship, etc.), providing guidance on timelines and next steps.
  • Partner with Legal, Finance, and People Ops to ensure immigration sponsorship decisions are consistent, compliant, and aligned with company policy.

Qualifications

• 7–10+ years of HR experience, including at least 5 years in an HR Business Partner role within high-growth or complex environments.
• Strong business judgment and the ability to understand context quickly, challenge assumptions when needed, and guide leaders through tough trade-offs.
• Deep experience in employee relations, performance management, and manager coaching.
• Demonstrated ability to ramp up quickly in a new environment and deliver results with limited onboarding time.
• Comfort operating synchronously and asynchronously in a remote-first, fast-paced, evolving environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and a high degree of discretion.

Nice to Have

• Experience supporting distributed, remote-first teams.
• Prior work in a fast-growing startup or tech environment.
• Prior experience in contract or interim HR roles.

Benefits

• Holistic health: Medical, dental, vision benefits
• Annual wellness stipend
• Mental health support
• Life, STD, LTD Income Insurance Plans
• Work/life blend: Unlimited PTO, Parental leave, Flexible schedule, 12 Paid US company holidays
• Quarterly personal productivity stipend
• One-time stipend for home office upgrades
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Tax Savings Programs
• Continuous learning: Learning / Education stipend, Participation in talks and conferences, Employee Resource Groups, AI enablement workshops / sessions