Senior People Business Partner, Operations

Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!

Whatnot is the largest live shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops.

As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our values and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact.

We're one of the fastest growing marketplaces and were recently named the #1 Best Startup Employer in America by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.

Role

As a Senior People Business Partner, you'll partner with leaders across our global Operations org to understand business priorities, strengthen teams, and support continued growth and international expansion.

You'll act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, helping drive people strategy, org design, and key talent decisions. You'll also play a key role in shaping and executing People programs that enable teams to do their best work.

You will:

• Coach leaders and managers to improve team effectiveness, performance, and employee experience
• Partner on people strategy, including org design, workforce planning, and team development
• Advise on employee relations matters, including performance, behavior, and investigations, partnering with legal as needed
• Drive core people processes (compensation, performance cycles, talent planning) for your org
• Partner with COEs (L&D, Total Rewards, People Ops) to shape and deliver effective programs
• Use data and insights to proactively identify and address talent risks (e.g., attrition, engagement)
• Lead change management across reorgs, role changes, and evolving business priorities
• Support manager development across inclusion, team effectiveness, and leadership capability
• Design and lead org-specific initiatives tied to business needs
• Leverage engagement surveys and people data to inform decisions around culture, growth, retention, and performance

We offer flexibility to work from home or from one of our global office hubs, and we value in-person time for planning, problem-solving, and connection. Team members in this role must live within commuting distance of our San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle hubs.

You

Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We've found that low ego, a growth mindset, and leaning into action and high impact goes a long way here.

As our next Senior People Business Partner, you bring 7+ years as an HR Business Partner, with at least 4+ years supporting Operations teams (customer support, Trust & Risk, hourly agent populations) in a remote or distributed environment. You also have:

• Deep familiarity with the employee lifecycle for hourly CX, Trust & Risk, and customer support populations
• A strong partnership mindset - you build trust quickly with leaders, managers, and employees at all levels
• Experience in fast-paced, high-growth environments - you're proactive, action-oriented, and comfortable iterating
• Sound judgment and discretion when handling sensitive situations, with strong attention to detail
• Clear, effective communication built for a remote-first environment
• Strong prioritization skills and a consistent line of sight to business goals
• Comfort working with data to surface insights and inform decisions

Benefits

• Generous Holiday and Time off Policy
• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
• Work From Home Support
  
  • Home office setup allowance
  • Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
• Care benefits
  
  • Monthly allowance for wellness
  • Annual allowance towards Childcare
  • Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses
• Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally
• Monthly allowance to dogfood the app
  
  • All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).
• Parental Leave
  
  • 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.

EOE

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.