Director of People Operations

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🏢 About Sitemate

Sitemate builds best-in-class software and AI agents for the built world, helping construction, infrastructure and industrial companies work smarter and faster. Our mission is to multiply the engineering power of the built world.

Storm is the #1 data capture agent for the front line of the built world - converting audio, photos and videos into clean structured records.

With conversational support in-app and across SMS, Whatsapp and phone calls, Storm is shifting front line workers from paperwork and clunky digital forms, to natural language and multi-channel data capture.

Our core platforms are Dashpivot (safety, quality and field reporting), Gearbelt (fleet and asset management), Flowsite (no-code integrations), and the Sitemate mobile app for every worker on site.

We have strong product-market fit, generating thousands of new leads per month through word of mouth and organic channels. We are backed by Blackbird, with 200 people across 18+ countries and entities in Australia, the UK, the US and Canada.

📝 About the role

Sitemate's Director of People Operations owns the People Operations function end-to-end, global payroll, the employee lifecycle, Talent Acquisition and IT provisioning, and the People programs every department runs to, from performance, engagement and learning and development to levelling and compensation. The role leads a team of two: a Senior Talent Acquisition Manager and a People Operations Manager.

The job is to architect the next version of People Operations at Sitemate, built for the AI era so the team stays small as Sitemate grows. That only works if systems and AI agents do the admin.

This is a hands-on, builder-first role. You build the systems, agents and playbooks yourself, and set the bar through your own work.

At Sitemate, managers are player-coaches at every level, including the executive team. Time in the details sharpens the bar you hold, alongside the leadership work.

🎯 What the function owns

The People Operations architecture. How our people system and tools work together across every entity, the data that flows between them, and which steps run without human admin. You design for automation first, within the systems we already run

People Operations' AI agents and automation. What gets automated next, where agents get built, what stays human, and the guardrails, including which employee and payroll data each tool may touch

The frameworks and playbooks. Written so managers can run a people process themselves, day or night, with a playbook or an agent to answer the question when the team isn't online

The People programs. Career paths and levels, the promotion policy, the principles behind our compensation plans, learning and development, and the performance, engagement and promotion cycles. Each one is run like a product: its users are every manager at Sitemate, and adoption is how you measure it

People data and listening. The engagement measurement system and the people reporting leaders use to make decisions, from how each metric is defined and kept confidential through to action and re-measurement

The People Operations function and team. Its operating model, workforce plan and the breakdown standard beneath each initiative, with nothing entering execution until you've greenlit it. You lead, coach and develop the team, and make the performance, promotion and exit decisions within it

🤝 Who you work with

CEO. Sets company strategy. You're responsible for translating it into clear people priorities, bringing synthesised options

Finance. Your closest partner on payroll, headcount planning, compensation benchmarking and levelling.

Legal. Support on employee relations casework and compliance globally

Your team. A Senior Talent Acquisition Manager and a People Operations Manager. You set direction and standards, and they run their processes day to day

Department leaders across GTM, EPD and Marketing. Your partners on org design, levelling, compensation and hiring. They and their managers run their people cycles and hiring loops off the frameworks and playbooks you build

⚡ What needs to happen

People Operations at Sitemate is being rebuilt for the AI era, and this role leads it. In rough order of priority:

Keep what's in flight running. Payroll, recruitment operations and compliance work are all in motion, and none of it can drop while the rebuild happens

Map where the admin sits. Every manual step across payroll, the lifecycle, hiring and the People programs; what each one costs, and which ones an agent or automation should take first

Design the next version of People Operations. How our systems work together with the agents built on top of them

Build the first agents and automations. Starting with the steps that cost the most time or cause the most errors

Turn the People programs into self-serve playbooks. So managers can run a cycle, a lifecycle change or a hiring loop themselves, at any hour

Set up the People Operations Manager. Their priorities, their SLAs, and a written split between what they run and what you own

✅ What success looks like

By 90 days

You've mapped where manual admin sits across People Operations, and told the CEO in writing which steps you'll automate first and why

Your first automation or agent is live in a real People process, with the before and after measured

Every payroll run across globally has closed on time, reconciled and signed off by Finance

Every in-flight payroll, recruitment operations and compliance item has a named owner and a written next step

By 6 months

The design for the next version of People Operations is written down, agreed with the CEO, and being built against

Managers can run at least one full people cycle from a playbook or agent without the People team stepping in

The function's SLAs and KPIs are agreed with the CEO and reported against without being asked, including the share of lifecycle steps running without manual touch

By 12 months

Calibration and promotion outcomes hold to one standard across departments, with the data to show it

There's someone ready to step into at least one key role in your team if needed

🔧 Day-to-day

Personally build and fix People Operations workflows, automations and agents

Design how Rippling, Remote and Ashby work together, and find the next manual step to remove

Write and maintain the frameworks and playbooks managers run off

Run the function's weekly cadence

Coach your team on direction and standards, and hold the hiring bar

Handle complex employee relations and compliance cases with Legal

Own calibration, promotion and exit decisions across the function

🧬 How we build

Our Operating Principles are non-negotiable behavioural standards, written down and used in reviews. The ones this seat lives and enforces:

Build the business like we build product. People Operations is run like a product. The systems and People programs have users, a roadmap and a scoreboard, and they're reviewed like a product surface

Build AI native. The default question on any People process is which agent or automation should run it, and which part genuinely needs a person

You ship your org chart. To hit a new goal with the same small team, we look at workflows, systems and role scope first. Org design is People Operations work, for every department

Don't offload the thinking to the next person. A playbook, a brief to your team or an agent's instructions are complete enough to act on without a follow-up question

Single responsible owner. People initiatives that touch Finance, Legal or other Operations streams get one accountable owner, with sub-tasks delegated to others

Grow from within. Before opening a search, ask whether someone on the team is ready or nearly ready. You hold ev