Head of People Operations

About the role

Sitemate, a company building software and AI agents for construction, infrastructure and industrial companies, is looking for a Head of People Operations based in Sydney. The role owns the People Operations function end-to-end: global payroll, the employee lifecycle, Talent Acquisition and IT provisioning, and the People programs covering performance, engagement, learning and development, levelling and compensation. It leads a team of two (a Senior Talent Acquisition Manager and a People Operations Manager) and is a hands-on, builder-first position focused on designing a lean, AI-native People Operations function.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the rebuild of People Operations for the AI era, keeping the team small while systems and AI agents handle the admin
• Define the People Operations architecture, AI agents and automation, and the guardrails around employee and payroll data
• Write frameworks and playbooks so managers can run people processes themselves
• Own the People programs: career paths, levels, promotion policy, compensation principles, learning and development, and performance and engagement cycles
• Own the engagement measurement system and people reporting, and the function's operating model, workforce plan and performance, promotion and exit decisions
• Work with the CEO, Finance, Legal and department leaders on strategy, payroll, headcount, compensation and hiring
• Build the first agents and automations, turn the People programs into self-serve playbooks, and set up the People Operations Manager

Required profile

• Experience leading People Operations through a high-growth, high-change period, ideally a systems or process transformation at a 100 to 300 person scale-up
• Systems thinking: designing processes that run themselves, and hands-on experience building automations or AI agent workflows
• Written frameworks or playbooks that managers have used independently
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and making fast decisions

Required skills

• Operations or leadership experience, ideally through a growth-stage transition
• Nice to have: Series B or growth-stage scale-up experience
• Essential tools: Slack, Jira, Confluence; bonus: Zapier, Airtable, Rippling, Remote, Ashby, AI coding tools such as Claude

What we offer

• Transparency: monthly share metrics, hiring plans and financial performance, visible levels, career frameworks and pay ranges
• Global team across Australia, the UK, the US and Canada, with Sydney HQ
• Equity, 20 days annual leave plus sick, carer's and compassionate leave, parental leave, EAP, L&D budget, home office setup, weekly catered lunches, work-from-anywhere weeks and flex days