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Salary: USD 180,000 - 220,000 / annual
Distyl AI is an applied AI technology company partnering with major institutions to rearchitect critical operations for the AI frontier. Customers span telecom, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, consumer goods, and global social organizations. The company researches and deploys AI-native operations technologies affecting hundreds of millions of consumer interactions, tens of millions of supply chain transactions, and millions of patient journeys. Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, DST Global, and board members from 20+ Fortune 500 companies.
You will be Distyl's first HR Business Partner, reporting directly to the Head of People. This is a foundational role where you will define what business partnering looks like at the company and build core capabilities in the function. Your client group includes engineers, researchers, AI strategists, growth leaders, and the managers who lead those teams.
Key responsibilities include: partnering with managers and leaders as their first call on team performance, structure, hiring plans, and difficult conversations; coaching managers and individual contributors through growth, feedback, and transitions to measurably improve their effectiveness; defining evidence-backed frameworks that allow Distyl to scale fairly and thoughtfully; advising on compensation decisions including offers, promotions, and merit increases; leading team-level organizational design and change management from design through sequencing, communications, and follow-through; using engagement data, attrition signals, and 1:1 insights to surface organizational dynamics before they become problems; and working AI-native by using AI tools daily in your own work and creating repeatable systems.
A typical day might involve coaching people through critical moments, diagnosing organizational issues and building solutions, researching compensation for novel roles, or facilitating manager skill-building sessions. This role offers the opportunity to put your fingerprints on how the People function scales.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 5–8 years in HR with a background in business partnering: embedded partnership with leadership teams, coaching employees and managers through difficult moments, navigating complex employee relations issues and organizational changes with sound judgment and discretion
- Direct, kind, low-ego approach: thoughtful feedback, care for work and others, focus on outcomes over credit
- Tech or AI background, strongly preferred: experience supporting engineers, researchers, or technical leaders at a technology company; understanding of how technical teams work and what drives engagement; experience in an AI or applied-AI company is a plus
- Demonstrated coaching ability: coach managers rather than solve their problems; ability to point to leaders who improved because of your coaching
- Compensation literacy: ability to read bands, explain leveling decisions, hold the line on off-cycle requests, and recognize when exceptions are warranted
- Organizational design and change management experience: have run at least one team-level restructure or leader transition from design through communications and follow-through; understand the difference between an org chart and an org
- Systems thinking: understand the system before designing interventions; separate symptoms from causes; resist quick fixes
- Builder's instinct: operated without a playbook and then written one; comfortable being first; experience in high-growth startup environment preferred
