People Operations Lead

About the role

As Axle's first People Operations hire, you'll build the people function end to end and be the connective tissue between our hiring ambitions and the team experience that makes people want to stay and do the best work of their careers. This is a full-stack recruiting mandate: you'll lead hiring across the entire company—both our technical org (Engineering and Product) and our go-to-market org (Sales, Partnerships, and Deployment)—so fluency operating across two very different talent markets is essential.

This is a builder's role, and it will ebb and flow. In one stretch you might be running six open reqs at once; in another you'll be designing a performance review cycle from scratch. As a north star, expect roughly 50-75% talent (own every open req, source and manage external recruiters, run a great candidate experience, and drive the offer process end to end) and 25-50% people operations (onboarding, culture, L&D, performance management, and compensation bands). The mix will shift with the season; the bar won't—every new hire should feel set up to win from day one.

Responsibilities

Talent & Recruiting

• Own all open requisitions across both technical hiring (Engineering, Product) and go-to-market hiring (Sales, Partnerships, Deployment), plus Corporate roles—managing pipeline, calibration, and velocity across each.
• Source, select, and manage our external recruiting partners (retained, embedded, and sourcing-only) and hold them accountable to results.
• Administer and optimize (bringing AI) our ATS (Ashby)—from workflow automation to funnel reporting.
• Design and run a candidate experience that "wows"—fast, personal, and consistent.
• Drive the offer process end to end, from leveling and comp to close.
• Standardize interview panels and train interviewers to keep our hiring bar calibrated as we scale.
• Build Axle's employer brand and top-of-funnel talent pipeline through recruiting and talent-building events—hosted meetups, hackathons, happy hours, and community nights—with a particular focus on New York, where we're scaling fastest and building a young, in-office team out of our Chelsea office (152 W 25th St).

People Operations

• Build and own onboarding so every new hire ramps quickly and integrates with their team.
• Develop our employee handbook, first HR policies, and the internal resources that scale a growing team across New York and Atlanta.
• Partner with leadership on compensation bands and benchmarking (Carta/Pave), equity refreshes, and performance/feedback cycles.
• Own the systems of the function—HRIS (Rippling), ATS (Ashby), and the workflows that connect them.
• Shape our culture deliberately—rituals, all-company onsites, recognition, in-office events (especially in New York), and the small surprises that make Axle a place people love working.
• Partner with the founding team on org design and headcount planning.

Operational Efficiency

• Build out AI agents/skills to help bridge communication gaps between different teams.
• Develop best practices for team members on which tools to use.
• Identify and champion opportunities where AI or automation can help the business move faster—not just in the people operations function, but across the entire company.
• Experiment with new tools and workflows without deep technical expertise.
• Partner with the right teams to turn ideas into action.
• Encourage broad adoption of new tools across the team.

Requirements

• 5+ years across Talent/Recruiting and People/HR, with real depth in both.
• Experience at a venture-backed startup (Seed through Series C) in a hyper-growth phase, where you've had to make trade-offs about priorities and resources.
• A track record as a hands-on operator who has also built systems—equally comfortable closing a candidate and designing a comp band.
• Deep recruiting instincts—you've filled diverse roles across both technical and go-to-market teams, and managed external recruiters to results.
• Fluency with modern people tooling (ATS, HRIS) and a bias toward automation and AI—we run AI-first internally.
• Exceptional judgment, discretion, and communication—this is a high-trust role with visibility into comp, strategy, and the founding team's priorities.
• A builder's mindset: comfortable with ambiguity, cyclical workloads, and defining the function as you go.

Nice to have

• You've been the first People/Talent hire at a venture-backed startup and stood up the function from zero.
• Experience hiring technical talent (engineering, product) at a high bar, not just GTM roles.
• You've implemented or deeply administered an ATS (Ashby a plus) and built hiring analytics and reporting.
• A strong network across NYC startup talent you can tap for referrals and events.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401k retirement plan.
• Unlimited vacation policy.
• Flexible hybrid work schedule.
• Annual team offsite.
• Bring pets to work.

Pay

$140k - $200k base salary.

0.05 - 0.2% equity with a 4-year vesting cycle and 1-year cliff.

Schedule

In-person 4 days a week in our New York (Chelsea) office and 3 days a week in Atlanta.

About Axle

Axle is the AI-native clearinghouse for insurance. Our infrastructure and AI agents automate complex insurance workflows between carriers and third parties, including insurance verification, monitoring, and policy updates. The multi-trillion dollar insurance industry still relies on phone calls, paper forms, and outdated systems that are slow, error-prone, and easy to fake. Axle bridges the gap between insurance and other industries through an AI-native clearinghouse, enabling clients to make business decisions in seconds instead of hours while allowing consumers to unlock their most underutilized financial asset—insurance.

We are backed by leading investors including Y Combinator, Google's AI fund Gradient Ventures, and angels from companies like Plaid and Cox Automotive. Trusted by Fortune 500 companies and top brands like Avis, Rocket Mortgage, and Experian, our revenue is growing 35% QoQ to mid-7-figures ARR, with best-in-class retention and growth continuing to accelerate.