HR Manager - Recruitment & People Operations

• Role: HR Manager - Recruitment & People Operations
• Location: Bengaluru, India | Full-time | Office-based
• Compensation: ₹14–18 LPA + ESOPs + Standard Benefits
• Reporting To: Co-Founders

Recruitment & Talent Acquisition (60%)

• Build and own the full-cycle recruitment pipeline across engineering, product, operations, and sales
• Partner with hiring managers to define role specs and evaluation criteria - translating start-up context into compelling positioning
• Source and screen across all channels: LinkedIn, niche communities, referrals, university networks, portfolio platforms (Fueler, GitHub, Dribbble for specialized roles)
• Conduct first-stage interviews and manage candidate experience from application through offer negotiation
• Build recruiting SOPs that scale - templates, interview guides, offer letters, reference checks - without losing the founder's voice.
• Track hiring metrics: time-to-hire, offer acceptance rate, quality-of-hire signal (30/60/90-day retention), cost-per-hire

People Operations & Culture (30%)

• Design and execute onboarding for first 40+ hires - including KMPs (Key Management Personnel), compliance for founder vesting, cap table clarity
• Build company handbook, employment policies, and compliance frameworks for a VC-backed entity (offer letters, confidentiality agreements, ESOP allocation, severance)
• Own employee lifecycle: compensation reviews, feedback cycles, exit management
• Initiate culture programs in Year 1 that scale: team rituals, values documentation, learning budgets, wellness touchpoints
• Partner with Finance on payroll, benefits, and compliance (statutory contributions, tax filings, employee records)

Strategic People Moments (10%)

• Advise founders on compensation positioning (salary bands, equity grants, bonus structures) for competitive hiring
• Surface people signals: early flight risk, team dynamics issues, retention risks
• Participate in board-level conversations on org design, headcount planning, and team structure

Essential:

• 4–6 years of HR experience, with at least 2 years in a high-growth, VC-backed environment.
• Hands-on full-cycle recruitment: sourcing, screening, interview loops, offer negotiation - not just process management
• Built hiring pipelines that scaled teams from 20 to 100+ people
• Familiarity with India employment law, statutory compliance, and offer letter structuring
• Comfort with ambiguity and founder-led decision-making (not consensus-driven or process-heavy)
• Quantitative mindset: tracking hiring metrics, KPIs, quality-of-hire signals
• “Mention your Favourite Hollywood movie in subject line while you share resume”

Experience that matters:

• SaaS, B2B software, or technology startup scaling phase (not enterprise HR)
• Experience hiring for specialized roles (engineers, product, data scientists) - not just generalist recruitment.
• Managed ESOP/equity communication or cap table coordination.
• Built or improved recruiting from scratch (templates, frameworks, playbooks)
• Comfortable with start-up scrappiness: wearing multiple hats, ambiguous briefs, rapid iteration

• Background in regulated industries (fintech, insurance, healthcare) - not required, but IRDAI/RBI context is a plus
• Experience with AI/ML hiring or deep tech recruitment
• Experience building HR tech integrations (ATS, payroll systems, HRIS tools like Rippling, BambooHR)
• MBA or formal HR certification (not required; execution beats credentials)
• Prior experience reporting to founders or in founder-led organizations

• Resourcefulness: Can solve problems creatively with limited budget (no enterprise HR tools, minimal team)
• Ownership: Sees a hiring gap and fills it; doesn't wait for approval to move
• Communication: Can pitch the company compellingly to candidates and translate founder vision into clear role descriptions
• Bias toward building: Would rather create a new onboarding doc than perfect a template
• Data orientation: Tracks metrics, optimizes based on data, not gut feel
• Cross-functional collaboration: Comfortable working directly with tech leads, product managers, and finance to understand hiring needs

1. Genuine impact: Every hire you make goes into a platform processing 300K+ daily calls across India's insurance ecosystem. Recruiting a great engineer directly affects product quality for millions of policyholders.
2. Founder partnership: You report directly to co-founders who respect people/ops deeply - this isn't a cost center, it's a competitive edge. Your voice in strategy conversations is real.
3. Build from zero: You're not inheriting a 50-person HR structure - you're designing it. Your frameworks, your culture values, your processes become the DNA of how 100+ people work.
4. Investor-grade credibility: You're building for a board-ready organization, which means your work gets seen and valued by institutional investors and enterprise clients.
5. Learning velocity: High-growth startups compress 5 years of learning into 18 months. You'll touch recruitment, compensation design, employee relations, compliance, culture building, and board governance - all simultaneously.
6. Market timing: AI/Insurance is one of India's fastest-growing sectors. You're building the org for a company positioned to own a workflow category.

1. Initial chat (30 min): Phone call to understand your background, what you're looking for, and fit
2. Founder conversation (60 min): Deep-dive with Co-founders on operating model, culture philosophy, and your approach
3. Reference calls: We'll call your former founders/hiring managers to validate full-cycle recruitment chops
4. Offer & close: Lean process, fast decision-making

Timeline: Targeting hire within 4 weeks of first conversation.

Send a brief note to careers@desible.in with:

• Your resume along with your Linkedin profile
• 2–3 line answer: What's one hiring challenge you solved that you're proud of?
• Available to start:

We read every application. Decisions within 2 weeks.

Or Apply directly with the below link: