Talent Acquisition & People Ops Lead

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About Kernel

Our mission is to build your source of truth for enterprise intelligence, starting with empowering Enterprise RevOps to improve go‑to‑market efficiency with AI. RevOps teams have an impossible job when it comes to correcting the CRM data that AI (and reps!) need as context for decision‑making. This is the problem we’re solving at Kernel. We’re growing extremely fast and are working with many of the best RevOps teams in the world, such as Remote.com, Navan, Zip, GoCardless, Cognism, and many more. We’re a team of second‑time founders and have raised $15mm+ from top VCs and revenue leaders at OpenAI, Slack, Snowflake, and MongoDB.

The Role

We are looking for our foundational Talent & People Operations Manager to help us scale. Your north star will be driving our growth by bringing exceptional talent into the business. Your primary focus will be owning the full recruitment life‑cycle and implementing scalable strategies to attract, engage, and hire top‑tier candidates. You will own the talent acquisition funnel from end to end, working as a strategic partner to the founders and hiring managers. During the natural highs and lows of the recruitment cycle, you will use your expertise to build the foundational pillars of our People Operations function, from onboarding to performance management, ensuring we build a world‑class employee experience.

Important To Know

• Hours – This will be an exciting but intense job. Kernel is growing extremely fast and hours can often be long.
• Working location – Minimum 4 days a week in the London office (most people do 5).

What You’ll Do

Primary Focus: Talent Acquisition

• Own End‑to‑End Recruiting: You will proactively source, engage, and manage the entire hiring process for a variety of roles, ensuring we stay ahead of hiring needs as the company expands.
• Build a World‑Class Pipeline: Build and maintain a robust pipeline of passive candidates through creative sourcing strategies and tools.
• Partner with the Business: Work closely with hiring managers to deeply understand role requirements and create effective interview processes.
• Build our Employer Brand: Support and lead initiatives related to our employer brand, including content, events, and outreach strategies to put Kernel on the map as a top destination for talent.

Secondary Focus: People Operations

• Support Employee Growth: Collaborate with leadership to support the initial design of our performance feedback cycles and career development frameworks.
• Create our playbook: Help create and maintain our employee handbook, policies, and benefits, ensuring a clear and supportive environment for the team.
• Build foundational processes: Design, implement and maintain core people programs.

About You

• Experience in talent acquisition, recruiting coordination, or sourcing – ideally in a high‑growth or startup environment.
• Proficient in using sourcing tools (e.g. LinkedIn Recruiter, Welcome to the Jungle, Cord, Ashby).
• You are comfortable wearing multiple hats and are excited by the opportunity to switch between hands‑on recruiting and building foundational HR processes in a fast‑paced, ambiguous environment.
• Excellent communication and relationship‑building abilities.
• You are passionate about building diverse, high‑performing teams and understand the impact that great talent has on a company's trajectory.

Your Traits

• All‑in: You’re not afraid to roll up your sleeves and do what it takes to get the job done. You have no problem ‘taking out the trash’.
• Entrepreneurial: You’re a creative, resourceful generalist. You like solving problems, figuring things out fast, and working with limited structure or playbooks.

Essential Qualifications

• ~3‑7 years of talent acquisition experience in a fast‑paced startup environment.
• Proven ability to just GSD. Directly, and via influence / leadership.

Nice‑To‑Have

• Ideally, some of your time has been spent in a fast‑paced startup environment. But this isn’t a hard requirement if you really want to make this transition.
• Experience owning or supporting one or more core business functions such as Talent Acquisition, People Operations or Business Operations.

What We Offer

• Working directly with the founding team and managers.
• A phenomenal platform for accelerated career growth.
• Dinner: Free when working past 6 pm.
• Holidays: 24 days plus bank holidays.
• Salary: £60,000 – £90,000 depending on experience.
• Equity: Option grant on employee‑friendly terms.
• Flexibility: Ability to work abroad for 2‑weeks a year + flexibility during the working week for appointments (or anything else).

Seniority level

Mid‑Senior level

Employment type

Full‑time

Job function

Human Resources

Industries

Software Development

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