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Airbound is building the world's most efficient aircraft to revolutionize drone delivery logistics. The company's mission is to make delivery universally accessible by reducing the cost of moving goods from ₹100/km to 10 paise/km through fundamental aerospace innovation.
As HR & People Operations Lead, you will own the entire people function and lead a team of two (Talent Acquisition Manager and HR Business Partner). You are accountable for all aspects of talent and people operations as Airbound scales from 150 people to significantly larger headcount while maintaining speed and ownership culture.
Key responsibilities include:
- Leading, coaching, and developing your people team with clear goal-setting and execution accountability
- Owning the overall people strategy and translating the company's scaling plan into hiring, organizational structure, and culture roadmaps
- Driving outcomes across talent acquisition (hiring velocity and quality) and HR/people operations (performance, retention, employee relations)
- Owning workforce planning, headcount planning, and people budget management with leadership
- Building campus recruiting as a strategic talent channel, including university partnerships and internship-to-full-time conversion programs
- Creating and maintaining the people operating system (policies, compensation frameworks, compliance, HR data systems) to support scaling across multiple locations
- Setting cultural standards and serving as a trusted advisor to leadership on sensitive people decisions
- Monitoring organizational health and addressing issues proactively
- Providing hands-on support to the team as needed during the function's build-out phase
The role is based in Hoskote, Bangalore (company headquarters) and requires in-office presence with alternate Saturday work schedules.
QUALIFICATIONS
Must-have:
- 8+ years in HR, people operations, or talent, including demonstrated experience leading and developing a people team, ideally in fast-paced engineering-first hardware or manufacturing environments
- Track record of owning a people function end-to-end, spanning both talent acquisition and HR/people operations (not just one discipline)
- Experience building and scaling HR and recruiting systems from scratch, not simply operating existing systems
- Sharp judgment to identify hiring risks, team gaps, and critical people issues in real time before they escalate
- Strong people leadership capability: setting direction, coaching teams, and handling sensitive employee relations with fairness and discretion
- Highly disciplined and process-driven mindset with bias toward clean documentation and tight operational control
- Excellent communication, documentation, and cross-functional collaboration skills
- Comfort with Google Suite, Notion, and similar collaboration tools
Good to have:
- Previous experience building and leading a people function from scratch at an early-stage startup
- Understanding of hardware, manufacturing, or aerospace talent landscape and strategies for hiring, growing, and retaining that talent
