Senior People Partner / Senior HR Business Partner

Your role

You bring senior People expertise to Kipu, leading our People strategy, advising managers and building the frameworks needed as we grow. You will build on our existing People operations and work hands-on with our People Operations Manager. You report to our VP Business Operations, collaborate with the leadership, and partner closely with our People Operations Manager.

Your responsibilities

Strengthen People Operations

• Set a high bar for excellence and integrity
• Set a high bar for excellence and integrity
• Own the employee lifecycle: onboarding, offboarding, contracts and references
• Improve end-to-end People-related processes across departments
• Oversee our payroll provider for our German team and international colleagues
• Build and promote employee handbook and policies

Engage and partner the organization

• Listen across all teams, monitor engagement, and turn what you hear into visible action
• Build a feedback culture that works across many nationalities and working styles
• Be the trusted sparring partner on people decisions and organizational change
• Act as a trusted go-to person for our colleagues
• Drive a consistent career and compensation framework

Shape talent acquisition that scales

• Design how we hire: personnel forecasting, requirements scoping, interview process, and decision guidance
• Run our open roles yourself, including hard-to-find scientific and technical profiles
• Shape our employer brand and a candidate experience people talk about

Your profile

• People/HR generalist experience across the full employee lifecycle
• You have built or rebuilt a People function at a startup or scale-up
• Hands-on recruiting experience, ideally including technical or scientific roles
• Expert, practical knowledge of German employment law, and a feel for when to bring in counsel
• Experience with Personio or a similar HRIS
• You have guided people through change and know how to build trust and engagement
• High agency: you set your own agenda, prioritize hard and finish what you starty
• Team player: you sport a collaborative way of working
• AI-literate: you know how to use AI to optimize People workflows
• Data driven: you support your decision making with sounds numbers and analysis
• You influence through judgment and credibility, not hierarchy
• Experience in international, multicultural teams
• Fluent English mandatory
• Fluent German preferred

Nice to have

• Deep-tech, research or scientific environments
• International hiring via employer of record
• SOC 2 or ISO 27001 HR controls
• Career frameworks, pay bands and pay transparency

Why join us?

• A mission at the frontier of quantum computing, alongside world-class scientists and engineers
• Direct work with our leadership team on the questions that shape the company
• A role with real ownership
• An international team based in Berlin
• Contributions toward public transport or shopping vouchers
• International remote work opportunities
• 30 vacation days
• Adaptable working hours and hybrid-friendly options