People Operations

About the role

This is the first dedicated People Operations hire at Foxglove. Today, HR operations, employment compliance, and people program execution all run through one person. As we scale through a period of significant headcount growth, we need someone to own the compliance and operational backbone of the people function so it can keep pace with the business.

You will own the employment compliance surface that currently sits with our outside counsel and our VP of Talent, run people operations end to end, and be the steady operator who keeps onboarding, offboarding, leave, and employee relations running cleanly. This is a high-ownership role for someone who is comfortable building structure where little exists and who can operate without an HR director layered above them.

About the Team

You will join Foxglove’s Talent function alongside Talent Acquisition, IT, and Workplace. As we scale toward roughly 100 employees across multiple US states and a growing international footprint, this function is building the structure to keep pace. You will partner closely with the VP of Talent, outside employment counsel, our benefits broker, and work cross-functionally with hiring managers and finance.

What You’ll Do

• Employment compliance

• Multi-state wage and hour compliance across all jurisdictions where we employ workers, with primary depth in California and Washington and working knowledge in other states.
• This includes San Francisco local ordinances such as the Health Care Security Ordinance, Fair Chance Ordinance, and paid sick leave where applicable.
• Assist with drafting employee agreements and commission plans, bringing in our external legal firm only as needed.
• Worker classification (exempt vs. non-exempt, employee vs. contractor) against federal, DOL, and state standards.
• Pay transparency and pay data reporting obligations.
• Handbook and written policy maintenance, keeping policies legally current and internally consistent across jurisdictions.
• Partnering with outside counsel on escalations rather than defaulting every question to them.

• Immigration and work authorization

• I-9 completion, reverification, and retention compliance.
• Coordinating a light volume of employment-based immigration matters (TN, O-1A, E-3) with outside counsel, and tracking status, expiration, and reverification deadlines.

• Leave and Benefits Administration

• Administering federal and state leave programs (FMLA, CFRA, WA PFML, and other applicable state leaves) through our leave management platform, Cocoon.
• Leading annual open enrollment and managing day-to-day benefits administration, including qualifying life events and employee benefits questions.
• Supporting benefits compliance obligations alongside our broker, including ACA reporting, ERISA documentation, COBRA, and required notices.

• People operations

• Serving as a first point of contact for employee relations questions and supporting managers through performance conversations, role changes, and exits.
• Supporting SOC 2 and security audits, including required training completion, and audit-ready evidence for HR matters.
• Maintaining clean, audit-ready people records and process documentation.

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years in HR, people operations, or employment compliance, preferably including time at a high-growth startup or scaling global company.
• Demonstrated depth in US multi-state employment compliance, with hands-on California experience.
• Working knowledge of I-9 and employment eligibility requirements, and comfort coordinating immigration matters with counsel.
• Experience administering leave programs and supporting benefits compliance.
• Strong operational instincts: you build process, close loops, and keep records clean without being asked.
• Sound judgment on when to handle something directly versus escalate to legal.
• A direct, low-drama communication style and comfort owning ambiguity.

Bonus points:

• Experience with our stack: Rippling, Ashby, Cocoon, Pave, Pulley.
• Exposure to international employment compliance (EOR or direct entity), particularly in the EUPHR, SPHR, SHRM-CP, or SHRM-SCP certification.

Why join Foxglove

• Work on real robotics problems.
• Build tools engineers rely on.
• Own a high-leverage product surface area.
• Enjoy ownership and autonomy.
• Work with strong peers and high standards.
• Align with a mission grounded in production software.

About Foxglove

Foxglove is the data platform for Physical AI. Built for robotics teams developing real-world systems, Foxglove provides a purpose-built, modular platform to collect, organize, and learn from vast quantities of multimodal data, creating the data flywheel to safely scale from development to distributed fleets. Founded in 2021, Foxglove supports hundreds of customers across automotive, aerospace, defense, logistics, agriculture, construction, and consumer robotics to deploy the next generation of intelligent machines.

Compensation Range

$155K - $190K