People & Culture Lead

Job description

🎯 Why This Role Matters In a consulting firm, the quality of the team is the quality of the business. As our People & Culture Lead, you will own how we find great people, how we hire them, how we onboard and grow them, and how the whole company stays informed and aligned along the way. Recruiting, HR operations, and internal communications are one role here because at our size they are one connected problem: building a team that does great work and enjoys doing it. You'll work directly with our founders and leadership team, with real autonomy over how the People function runs. If you like fixing processes before anyone asks and you treat hiring as a craft rather than a funnel, this role is for you. 🧠 How You'll Contribute Recruiting: Own full-cycle hiring for roles across strategy, engineering, and operations: sourcing, screening, structured assessments, panels, references, and offers. Run assessment processes that surface real signal: realistic working sessions, take-home scenarios, and calibrated scoring rather than gut-feel interviews. Keep the process resistant to inflated claims, coordinated application fraud, and AI-generated noise in the pipeline. Build talent pipelines ahead of need so hiring is a decision, not a scramble. People Operations: Run onboarding and offboarding end-to-end, from getting new teammates productive quickly to handling clean, compliant separations. Own the operational backbone: day-to-day employee administration and questions, including contracts, policies, PTO, payroll and benefits coordination, and compliance across a distributed, multi-country team. Shape and run our performance management, benefits, and compensation policies with clean process and clear communication. Be the trusted first stop for teammates on anything people-related, and know when to escalate. Culture & Internal Communications: Own the internal information flow: company updates, leadership announcements, project wins, and the rituals that keep a remote-first team connected. Write clearly and often. Turn leadership decisions into communications people actually read and understand. Shape the culture deliberately: recognition, feedback loops, team events, and the everyday signals that show what we value. Throughout: Use AI tools daily in your own workflows. We're an AI-native company and want our People function to reflect that. Work autonomously, make calls, and push back constructively when needed. Iterate on the processes you own and keep improving them over time. 🧬 What Makes You a Great Fit 5+ years (or equivalent skill level) across people operations, talent acquisition, or HR generalist roles, ideally in consulting, agency, or fast-moving tech environments. Full-cycle recruiting experience for senior and specialized roles; you can assess talent, not just schedule interviews. Experience supporting teams across US and European employment contexts. U.S.-based strongly preferred. Strong operational instincts: you've designed and implemented people processes from scratch, not just run existing ones, and you keep sensitive information confidential. Fluency with modern AI tools in daily work, and curiosity about how generative AI reshapes the People function itself. Comfortable with ambiguity and distributed teams across time zones; you set expectations clearly and follow through. Good judgment and discretion. You'll handle sensitive compensation, performance, and hiring matters that require maturity and trust. We value curiosity, proactive learning, and ownership. If you're a thoughtful builder who likes turning ambiguity into impact, you'll fit right in. 🎉 Perks & Benefits Competitive compensation with performance upside. Comprehensive benefits Remote work PTO Final package depends on experience and location. 💙 Who We Are, What We Stand For Very Big Things is a generative-AI consulting and implementation partner. We combine forward-deployed engineers, product strategists, and researchers to ship bespoke AI systems that deliver measurable ROI for mid-market and enterprise clients. We're AI-native: we build, use, and continuously improve our own workflow tooling (e.g., AI Sprints across R&D → Production) to move from idea to business impact fast. We are remote-friendly with an East-coast heartbeat. We optimize for skill, signal, and values over pedigree. Expect a fast process: intro → working session (realistic scenario) → panel → references. We focus on mid-market and enterprise clients. Legal disclaimer VBT is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all teammates.