Director of People Operations

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital. Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital. The role, in a nutshell: We're looking for a Director of People Operations to help scale our HR operations function as Chainguard grows and expands internationally. This role will lead our People Operations team, and will own the core employee lifecycle processes — onboarding, offboarding, compliance training, and job changes — as well as our expansion into new countries. We're currently opening entities in the UK and Canada, with Germany to follow, and expect to open several more countries next year. This role will be central to that effort, working cross-functionally with Finance and Legal to figure out how we operate compliantly, and how we pay and support people, in every country we enter. What You'll Do: • Own and scale Chainguard's core employee lifecycle processes, including onboarding, offboarding, compliance training, and updates for promotions and job changes • Lead the People Operations team, currently one manager with two direct reports • Make HR Operations more visible and accessible to employees • Lead the operational work of opening new legal entities internationally, including the UK, Canada, and Germany, and additional countries planned for next year • Own the ongoing maintenance of HR operations and compliance across all countries where Chainguard operates • Partner cross-functionally with Finance and Legal to navigate the compliance, payroll, and legal constraints of operating in each new country • Manage and expand our partnership with our Employer of Record (EOR) provider, given our reliance on remote employees across roughly 19 countries • Build scalable People Operations processes, templates, and resources as the function and company grow • Bring strong AI fluency to the function, using AI to design smarter, more efficient People Operations processes and improve the employee experience. What We're Looking For: • 8–10+ years in HR/People Operations, including 3+ years in a leadership/management capacity • Proven ownership of HRIS strategy — has led an implementation, migration, or major optimization (Workday, Rippling, ADP, or similar) • Experience owning the full employee lifecycle: onboarding, offboarding, org changes, data integrity, and process design • Background managing HR compliance operations — I-9s, leave administration, policy administration, audits • Experience standing up or scaling a people ops function in a high-growth SaaS or startup environment • International experience required, particularly across EMEA; experience in Japan, Singapore, or South America is a s