Senior People Operations Manager

Location: Brooklyn, NY (Hybrid - Required In-Office Tuesdays + Wednesdays in Dumbo)

Reports to: CEO

About Heady

Heady is a digital product consultancy that provides full-service strategy, design, full-stack development, and growth enablement for a wide range of industries—and we do it all with heart. Our team partners with companies from startups to Fortune 500s to deliver impactful technology and design solutions that drive real business results. Learn more about us at Heady.io.

We’re a relationship-driven, craft-focused, and people-first company. We care deeply about the employee experience and believe a strong culture is built through trust, communication, thoughtfulness, accountability, and genuine human connection. We’re looking for a People Ops Manager to help support and strengthen our people, culture, and day-to-day operations across our distributed team.

About the Role

The People Ops Manager role is focused on shaping and supporting the employee experience across every stage of the journey at Heady. As the People Ops Manager at Heady, you will serve as a trusted partner to employees and leadership alike, helping foster a thoughtful, connected, and high-performing culture across our distributed team.

This role sits at the intersection of people, culture, operations, communication, and strategy. You’ll work closely with leadership across employee engagement, recruiting, onboarding, offboarding, performance management, culture initiatives, and day-to-day people operations. You’ll help create structure where needed and ensure our people feel supported, connected, and aligned as we continue to grow.

You will play an important role in helping bridge communication and collaboration across our distributed workforce, including employees and contractors across multiple regions and time zones. We’re looking for someone who understands the nuances of supporting global teams and can proactively identify opportunities to improve communication, processes, engagement, and overall team health.

This is a highly collaborative and hands-on role. We’re looking for someone who is equally comfortable thinking strategically and jumping into the day-to-day details, whether that’s supporting a manager through a sensitive employee conversation, planning a company event, improving an onboarding process, managing performance review cycles, or auditing internal policies and systems.

This is a hybrid role based in Brooklyn, NY, with in-office collaboration on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in our Dumbo office. As Heady continues to grow and evolve, we may transition to a 3-day in-office schedule over time.

What You’ll Own

Employee Experience and Culture

• Supporting the Team: You’ll serve as a trusted resource for employees across day-to-day support, questions, guidance, and employee experience initiatives. You help foster an environment where employees feel supported, heard, and connected.

• Building Connection Across Distributed Teams: You’ll help bridge communication and cultural gaps across our distributed workforce, including employees and contractors across multiple regions and time zones. You understand that strong culture requires intentional effort, especially in hybrid and remote environments.

• Employee Engagement + Surveys: You’ll own employee engagement efforts, including pulse surveys, feedback initiatives, and sentiment tracking. You’ll identify themes, surface insights to leadership, and help turn feedback into actionable improvements.

• Culture and Team Building: You’ll coordinate employee events, team gatherings, celebrations, and culture-building initiatives that strengthen connection across the company. You’ll also support internal communications, trainings, announcements, and engagement efforts that help keep teams informed, connected, and energized.

People Operations and Organizational Support

• Performance Management: You’ll own and manage key people processes including onboarding, offboarding, mid-year check-ins, end-of-year reviews, and feedback cycles. You’ll help managers stay organized, thoughtful, and accountable throughout the process.

• Compliance + HR Operations: You’ll help ensure Heady remains organized, compliant, and operationally sound across core HR processes and requirements, including onboarding documentation, I-9s, payroll support, benefits administration and renewals, compliance trainings, HR systems, employee records, and internal policies and platforms.

• Process Improvement + Operational Excellence: You’ll regularly audit People Ops processes, policies, documentation, and systems to ensure they remain organized, scalable, compliant, and employee-friendly. You are always looking for ways to improve how we operate.

• Strategic Partnership with Leadership: You’ll partner closely with leadership on organizational planning, employee support, hiring strategy, engagement trends, and evolving team needs. You’ll also support organizational communication and change management initiatives as Heady continues evolving its offerings, systems, and ways of working.

• Staying Ahead of the Nuances: You proactively stay on top of trends, themes, and subtle shifts across the organization. Whether it’s identifying communication gaps, manager support needs, process inconsistencies, or morale concerns, you notice the details before they become larger issues. You also stay informed on evolving workplace, People Ops, and AI-related trends, bringing ideas and recommendations to leadership that help strengthen how we support and evolve our teams.

Recruiting and Business Support

• Hiring and Recruiting Coordination: You’ll support recruiting operations, interview coordination, candidate experience, and hiring logistics while ensuring candidates have a thoughtful and welcoming experience throughout the process. You’ll also help improve recruiting processes, draft job descriptions, partner closely with hiring managers, and support hiring strategy and organization across the company.

• Office and Team Support: You’re willing to roll up your sleeves and jump in where needed, whether that’s supporting office operations, helping coordinate logistics, assisting with internal initiatives, or solving unexpected problems that arise throughout the day.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: You’ll work closely with leadership, department heads, recruiters, managers, and external partners to ensure alignment across people, business, and operational needs.

Who You Are

Experience + Skill Set

• People Ops Experience: You have 5+ years of experience in People Ops, HR, employee experience, culture, or similar people-focused roles, ideally within a fast-paced startup, agency, or growing organization.

• Distributed Team Experience: You have experience supporting distributed and global teams and understand the importance of creating connections across different locations, cultures, and time zones.

• Operationally Strong: You are highly organized, detail-oriented, dependable, and comfortable managing multiple moving pieces at once.

• Strategic + Hands-On: You enjoy thinking strategically while also jumping into executional work and day-to-day support.

• Systems Familiarity: Experience using platforms such as TriNet and Lattice is a plus.

• Communication Skills: You communicate clearly, thoughtfully, and directly. You are comfortable navigating sensitive conversations with professionalism, empathy, and sound judgment.

Culturally

• Warm + Relationship-Driven: You genuinely enjoy supporting people and creating thoughtful employee experiences. Employees naturally feel comfortable coming to you for support and guidance.

• Emotionally Intelligent: You bring empathy, strong interpersonal instincts, and professionalism to your work while still maintaining boundaries, discretion, and accountability.

• Highly Observant: You pay attention to nuance, team dynamics, communication patterns, and organizational shifts. You notice the small things that impact culture and employee experience.

• Resourceful + Proactive: You don’t wait to be told what needs attention. You proactively identify opportunities for improvement and take initiative to solve problems.

• Flexible and Adaptable: You thrive in environments where priorities can shift quickly and where no two days look exactly the same. You bring a steady, calm, and grounded presence to your work and are able to help others navigate change with thoughtfulness and stability.

• Collaborative: You enjoy partnering across teams and functions and understand how to balance employee advocacy with business needs.

• Growth-Oriented: You are excited by change and interested in how emerging technologies, tools, and AI can improve communication, operations, employee experience, and the future of work.

Compensation

The anticipated salary range for this role is $125,000–$140,000 USD annually, depending on experience, skill set, and overall alignment with the role.

Benefits + Perks

• Health + Wellness: Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage - effective from Day 1

• Time Off: Flexible PTO (we encourage at least 4 weeks per year) plus 13 paid company holidays

• Future Planning: 401(k) eligibility after 3 months of service

• Growth: A dedicated Continued Learning Program to support professional development

• Rest + Recharge: Sabbatical Benefit eligibility after 3 years of service

• Family First: Generous and inclusive Parental Leave plans

• Hybrid Flexibility: 2 days of in-person collaboration in our Dumbo office (Tuesdays + Wednesdays)

• Team Bonding: Happy Hours, birthday cakes, rooftop hangs, Halloween + Holiday parties and more!

Note: We highly encourage you to apply even if you don't meet 100% of the requirements above. We value the unique perspective and expertise you bring to your craft.