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Sitemate is a construction and infrastructure software company building AI agents and platforms for the built world. The company has 200 people across 18+ countries, is backed by Blackbird, and operates from Sydney HQ with entities in Australia, the UK, the US, and Canada.
The Director of People Operations owns the People Operations function end-to-end, including global payroll, employee lifecycle, talent acquisition, IT provisioning, and people programs (performance, engagement, learning and development, levelling, and compensation). The role leads a team of two: a Senior Talent Acquisition Manager and a People Operations Manager.
This is a hands-on, builder-first role focused on architecting the next version of People Operations for the AI era. You will personally build systems, agents, and playbooks, setting the bar through your own work. Key responsibilities include:
- Designing People Operations architecture across all entities, including how systems and tools work together and which steps run without human admin
- Building and deploying AI agents and automations, deciding what gets automated, where agents are built, and establishing guardrails for employee and payroll data
- Creating frameworks and playbooks that enable managers to run people processes independently
- Running people programs like career paths, levelling, promotion policy, compensation, learning and development, and performance cycles as products with manager adoption as the success metric
- Establishing people data systems and engagement measurement for decision-making
- Leading, coaching, and developing the People Operations team
You will work closely with the CEO on translating company strategy into people priorities, partner with Finance on payroll and compensation, collaborate with Legal on employee relations and compliance, and support department leaders on org design and hiring.
Immediate priorities include keeping payroll, recruitment, and compliance work running while rebuilding the function; mapping manual admin steps and identifying automation opportunities; designing the next People Operations architecture; building and deploying the first agents and automations; converting people programs into self-serve playbooks; and setting up clear priorities and SLAs for the People Operations Manager.
Success metrics at 90 days include mapping manual admin, deploying the first automation or agent in a live process, closing all payroll runs on time globally, and assigning owners to in-flight items. At 6 months: written design for next-generation People Operations, at least one full people cycle running from playbook or agent, and agreed SLAs and KPIs. At 12 months: calibration and promotion outcomes standardized across departments, and succession readiness for at least one key role.
Day-to-day work involves personally building and fixing workflows and agents, designing how Rippling, Remote, and Ashby integrate, writing and maintaining playbooks, running weekly function cadence, coaching the team, handling complex employee relations cases, and owning calibration, promotion, and exit decisions.
Sitemate operates on core principles including building People Operations like a product, designing AI-native processes by default, shipping the org chart to hit goals with small teams, completing playbooks and briefs without follow-up questions, assigning single responsible owners, and growing from within before opening external searches.
REQUIREMENTS:
Must have:
- Operations or leadership experience through a comparable growth-stage transition (ideally 100–300 person scale-up)
- Systems architecture thinking: designing how multiple platforms and their data work together so processes run without manual admin
- Hands-on experience personally building automations or AI agents
- Experience writing frameworks or playbooks that managers ran independently
- Comfort with ambiguity; ability to move fast on best hypothesis and adjust as learning occurs
Nice to have:
- Series B or growth-stage scale-up experience
Essential tools:
- AI tools
- Project management and communication tools (Slack, Jira, Confluence)
Bonus tools:
- Zapier, Airtable, or similar no-code automation
- Rippling or comparable HRIS and global payroll platform
- Remote or comparable employer of record platform
- Ashby or comparable ATS
- AI coding tools (Claude, Claude Code)
Not a fit if: your instinct on broken processes is new policy, new tools, or more headcount; you rely on IT, vendors, or specialists to build detail; you measure value by being the person everyone asks; you treat AI and automation as someone else's project; you need full audits before touching live payroll or onboarding; or you need very stable, clearly defined reporting lines.
