Head of People Operations

About the role

Around Atomic Machines, our mission is to revolutionize the bits-to-atoms manufacturing process, enabling the creation of products previously unattainable. We're pioneering a new generation of manufacturing foundries capable of producing micro- and nano-scale machines, and our initial device showcases the capabilities of our platform.

We are seeking a dynamic individual to join our People Operations team. This role will oversee the entire employee lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding, benefits, payroll, leave, and regulatory compliance. The successful candidate will also lead the transition of benefits and payroll from a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) to in-house administration. They will ensure that these processes remain robust and scalable as the company expands beyond 200 employees across multiple locations.

The role encompasses People Operations, People Programs, People Systems, and the Atomizer Experience. The People Operations responsibilities include onboarding/offboarding, benefits, payroll coordination, leave, and immigration/regulatory compliance. The People Programs involve compensation administration, performance management, and employee development. The People Systems focus on HRIS and tooling decisions, with a pragmatic AI-forward lens. The Atomizer Experience ensures a consistent, engaging day-to-day experience across all sites.

What You'll Do

• Own the full employee lifecycle end-to-end — onboarding/offboarding, benefits, payroll coordination, leave, and immigration/regulatory compliance — including leading the transition of benefits and payroll from our PEO to in-house administration.
• Build the operational rigor — process documentation, SOPs, data integrity — that lets these processes hold up as the company scales past 200+ employees and multiple sites.
• Bring a modern, evidence-based approach to how these programs run, iterating based on what's actually working.
• Evaluate and select HRIS and People systems appropriate for a scaling company, favoring proven platforms over one-off custom builds.
• Bring a genuinely curious, evaluative mindset to AI-enabled features and vendors — fluent in assessing what's built into ATS, HRIS, and benefits platforms, without needing to personally build custom automation.
• Own the day-to-day experience of being at an Atomic Machines site — company and site-level events, and the everyday things that make people feel like part of a team — across Emeryville, Santa Clara, and future locations.
• Ensure that experience is consistent across sites as the company grows, rather than depending on informal effort at any one location.
• Team Leadership: Lead, coach, and develop the existing People Operations team through this maturation.
• Make deliberate vendor, tooling, and headcount tradeoffs; set clear priorities and quality standards across Operations, Programs, Systems, and the Atomizer Experience.

What You'll Need

• 10+ years of progressive People Operations leadership experience, ideally including a startup-to-scale transition; experience in a technical, hardware, or manufacturing environment is a plus.
• Direct experience bringing a function like benefits or payroll in-house, or managing complex payroll/benefits administration at scale.
• A strong track record of process design and systems implementation: HRIS selection/implementation, SOP design, and data governance.
• A genuinely curious, pragmatic approach to AI-enabled People Ops tools and being comfortable evaluating and adopting them thoughtfully.
• Experience owning performance management or employee development programs at a scaling company.
• Experience owning in-office employee experience, events and site-level culture — across multiple locations, distinct from building/facilities management.
• Strong California (and ideally multi-state) employment law fluency.
• Executive presence: comfortable advising executives and translating operational plans into business terms.
• Experience managing, coaching, and developing People Operations team members.
• Bachelor's Degree. Ability to work in-person from Emeryville, with periodic presence in Santa Clara.