Periodic Labs

Founding HR Leader

Menlo Park · Senior

H1B sponsorship available$250k-$350kDetected 89 days ago

Machine LearningPerformance ManagementEmployee RelationsCompensationResearchLeadershipCommunicationProblem SolvingMentoring

About the role

This isn't a traditional HR leadership role.
We need someone who has operated inside engineering-forward organizations - ideally in frontier AI, physical products, semiconductors, or hardware-forward startups - and who deeply understands how technical teams operate under pressure.
You'll be a trusted advisor to founders and senior leaders, bringing both strategic vision and operational rigor.

Partner directly with the leadership team on organizational design, workforce planning, and growth strategy as the company grows through its next phase
Lead employee relations work with professionalism and sound judgment - handling sensitive situations, investigations, and executive coaching with discretion and care
Design the people systems that help our scientific and engineering teams grow, get recognized, and get paid fairly - built for how technical people actually work, not borrowed from a playbook.
Design onboarding programs that integrate new engineers and scientists quickly into the Periodic Labs culture and way of working
Shape how we scale as an organization - this isn't a traditional hierarchy-building exercise, it's figuring out how a lab-first company adds people and structure without losing what makes it work.
Use people data and analytics to surface insights and drive evidence-based decisions on headcount, attrition, engagement, and team effectiveness
Strong command of the full HR spectrum - performance management, compensation design, employee relations, organizational design, and people operations
A builder's mindset: you're comfortable in ambiguous environments where people programs are still being defined and you'll often have to create the playbook from scratch

Experience at an AI lab, deep tech company, or research institution where the talent profile is unusually specialized
Experience scaling an HR function through a growth financing event or rapid headcount expansion
Experience partnering with recruiting on technical hiring strategy, including sourcing for niche scientific or engineering disciplines

Sound judgment on sensitive matters - you handle employee relations and investigations with appropriate seriousness and discretion

Run all things people related - spanning HR business partnering, onboarding, performance, compensation, learning and development.

Yes, we sponsor visas and will do everything we can to assist in this process with our legal support.

This listing is sourced directly from Periodic Labs's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.