Head of People at Arondite in London, England, GB

About Arondite

Arondite enables organisations to wield autonomy, data and AI at scale. We equip operators with the foundational software to orchestrate their mix of platforms and capabilities and take mission-critical decisions faster than their adversaries.

We exist to ensure the UK and its allies out-think, out-pace and out-adapt those who seek to threaten our values and way of life. Our technology is designed for deployment in the world’s most austere environments, and is relied upon by the world’s most demanding operators. We deploy alongside them, bringing our technical expertise wherever it is needed.

You will join Arondite at a pivotal moment in the company’s journey. We are ambitious, building for the long-term and backed by globally renowned investors including Index Ventures (Anthropic, Wiz, Figma, Revolut). Our company is being built by exceptional people; people who find high-tempo and challenging work engaging and exciting and who consistently deliver outsized impact.

You will have ownership and autonomy from Day One. There is no corporate ladder at Arondite. We hire the best people and give them extremely high levels of autonomy; the sky is the limit for an individual with the right ambition.

If you are motivated by our mission and if you want to be part of an outstanding team, then we want to hear from you.

About the role

As Head of People, you’ll lead how we manage, develop and reward our people as Arondite grows. You will have the opportunity and challenge to build this function while maintaining the culture that makes Arondite a great place to work.

You’ll work closely with the leadership team and be their trusted adviser on everything people-related, from organisational design to benefits and compensation, as well as employee relations and policy. The role is both strategic and hands-on. You’ll set the direction on how we level, pay and develop people. You’ll write the policy, run the process and manage sensitive conversations with care and maturity.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Build the people processes and ways of working that will help us scale, so the company keeps working well as the team grows
• Advise the leadership team on organisational design
• Support international growth, while ensuring a cohesive employee experience and culture
• Own our approach to pay, benefits and equity, working closely with our finance team
• Design and run performance review cycles, and support managers across the company to do this well
• Own policies, handbooks and contracts, and work with our legal team to keep them compliant with UK employment law
• Develop world-class continuous professional development and training programmes
• Work with our communications and marketing team to deliver first class internal communications and events
• Partner with the Talent Acquisition team on to ensure a seamless candidate experience through recruiting, pre-boarding and onboarding.

Arondite aims to bring together individuals from diverse backgrounds and with different perspectives; we therefore don’t expect people to have experience across every area of the requirements. Please apply even if you only partially fulfil the following lists.

You should have:

• CIPD Level 5 (Associate Diploma) or higher
• Senior generalist HR experience, including acting as the senior people lead in a growing business
• Experience in a high-growth startup or scale-up, ideally in tech
• Strong working knowledge of UK employment law, and confidence handling ER cases on your own
• Experience designing and running pay and performance processes
• A track record of building people processes where little structure existed

Ideally, you would also have:

• Experience supporting staff who travel internationally
• Experience leading a People function and maintaining culture in a multi-national company
• CIPD Level 7 or Chartered membership

Security clearance

We believe in working closely with defence customers. As a result, this role is likely to require you to hold a clearance or be willing to undergo UK security vetting to Security Check (SC) or above. This normally requires having continuous residency in the UK for at least 5 years.

Office vs hybrid working

We are focused on building a positive, collaborative engineering-driven culture. We therefore believe in making the office a friendly, comfortable and fun place to be, and we try to work from the office where possible. Of course, there are times when it makes sense for you to work from home and that's OK. You may also need to travel to visit customers, depending on your role. But in general you should only apply to join Arondite if you're excited to come into the office and work in person by default.

Application process

Generally, our interview process is comprised of the following stages:

1. CV submission with initial questions
2. Introductory Teams call (30 mins)
3. In-person interview (1.5-2 hours)
4. Interviews with Arondite’s Founders (30 mins each)

• Highly competitive base salary
• Generous equity in EMI share options in a well-funded and growing startup
• 7% employer pension contribution
• Free breakfast and lunch every day; free pizza and beers weekly
• Private health and dental insurance
• Cycle to work scheme
• Relocation support
• Visa sponsorship for extremely strong candidates
• Access to any resources, equipment and training that you need to do your job in a world-class way
• The opportunity to work with and learn from exceptional colleagues with excellent academic experience and deep industry knowledge