Head of People Operations

WHO WE ARE Notion is the collaborative AI workspace where teams and agents think together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkpYpWfEK5s. We're building one place where your knowledge, projects, meetings, and AI tools live side by side, so work is faster, clearer, and less fragmented. Millions of individuals, small teams, and large companies run their work on Notion. Notinos (our employees) are customer zero in bringing this future of work to life. We care about craft, building things that last, and the belief that great work is still fundamentally human. Our goal isn’t to ship the next feature. Each and every team of Notinos is working to set the standard for how humans work together in the AI era. From building a business’s system of record to making and managing AI agents to automating away the busy work, we care deeply about giving our customers more time for their life’s work. ABOUT THE ROLE: We’re looking for a Head of People Operations to lead our team and build the systems behind a great employee experience. You’ll shape the strategy across People Operations and Total Rewards operations, making everyday work simpler, more reliable, and increasingly agent-enabled. This is a player-coach role: develop the team, set direction, and stay hands-on—especially as you learn Notion. You’ll combine operational craft with thoughtful automation, keeping care and human judgment at the center of sensitive decisions. This role is based in San Francisco. We work from our offices on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (our Anchor Days) because we do our best thinking and building together in person. We’re looking for someone who’s excited to work alongside the team during those days. WHAT YOU'LL ACHIEVE: - Put agents to work thoughtfully. Prototype, test, and scale useful workflows, with trusted information, appropriate access, validation, and human review built in. - Lead the team and set the roadmap. Coach and develop team, establish clear ownership, and prioritize improvements across service delivery, systems, and automation. - Build reliable lifecycle and support workflows. Design and improve People Operations processes that support Notion as it grows, including onboarding, employee changes, leaves, and offboarding, with clear intake, ownership, documentation, service standards, and escalation paths. - Lead Total Rewards operations. Develop and evolve scalable operating frameworks across Total Rewards—including clear ownership, decision rights, controls, and cross-functional handoffs—to improve consistency and enable specialists to focus on strategic work. Own routine compensation and benefits operations and the processes behind them—from cycle readiness and data changes to Payroll handoffs. Partner with specialists on policy, program design, and complex exceptions. - Measure and strengthen operations. Use service, quality, and adoption data to improve performance and service delivery while maintaining data integrity, controls, and audit readiness. - Make change stick. Partner across People, Finance, Payroll, Legal, IT, and BizTech to resolve handoffs, align decisions, and drive adoption. SKILLS YOU'LL NEED TO BRING: - Experience leading a high performing People Operations team in a shared services capacity, building scalable processes in a growing organization, while remaining effective hands-on. - Demonstrated success building scalable People programs, infrastructure, and operational processes from the ground up - Operational depth in compensation administration and benefits, with sound judgment around accuracy, approvals, and exceptions. - Strong systems and process-design skills across HRIS, case management, and lifecycle workflows. Workday and global operations experience are a plus. - Practical