Head of People

About the Role

This position is the first dedicated executive People hire at Astro Mechanica. The role requires a builder who has operated at the center of a high-stakes, fast-scaling technical organization and owns the entire People stack end to end. You will architect and execute the full suite of HR systems that allow Astro Mechanica to move at speed without losing coherence or culture. You will translate the ambition of our leadership team into repeatable processes for hiring, compensation, and performance that can scale predictably. You will be the primary steward of our employee experience, ensuring that the day-to-day reality of working here matches the promise of our mission. You will partner directly with the COO, CEO, and technical leaders to shape strategy, de-risk people decisions, and safeguard our long-term employ brand. You are expected to make high-quality decisions under ambiguity, drawing on your judgment and pattern recognition rather than waiting for a manual to appear.

Key facts

What You'll Do

Design and drive the end-to-end talent acquisition strategy, owning sourcing, outreach, and conversion while building the internal recruiting function from the ground up. Establish the full employee lifecycle infrastructure, from onboarding and operations to offboarding, ensuring every interaction reflects our standards for clarity and care. Own total rewards, including compensation design, benefits administration, and the thoughtful rollout of equity programs so that promises to employees are precise and executable. Champion performance management as a driver of alignment and growth, creating practical systems that support accountability without bureaucracy. Elevate the employee experience by designing rituals, tools, and policies that reinforce psychological safety, inclusion, and durable engagement across a distributed workforce. Lead organizational design and headcount planning, translating business objectives into clear structures, roles, and decision rights that scale efficiently. Own compliance and risk management for people operations, with a focus on California employment law and the documentation practices that protect the company and employees. Build and maintain credible partnerships with cross-functional leaders, earning their trust through consistent execution, data-driven insights, and rigorous follow-through. Define and steward our culture operating system, ensuring that values are not just stated but measured, communicated, and lived every day. Set the standard for operational excellence in the People function, creating playbooks, dashboards, and feedback loops that keep the function transparent and actionable. Partner with leadership to model and reinforce behaviors that uphold our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring, retention, and day-to-day collaboration. Act as the primary point of contact for all matters related to people strategy, representing the function in high-stakes discussions with the executive team and the board. Drive continuous improvement across the employee journey, using qualitative and quantitative signals to identify friction and implement durable solutions. Own the long-term health of our employment brand, ensuring that our story to the market reflects both our ambition and our reality as a growing hardware-focused team.

Requirements

Bring a minimum of 10 years of progressive HR/People leadership experience, with a clear track record of owning the full function in a fast-moving environment. Have operated as a functional owner in a previous role, making end-to-end decisions on talent acquisition, rewards, performance, and compliance rather than acting solely as a business partner. Demonstrate a history of scaling an in-house talent acquisition function, including building sourcing channels, managing pipelines, and reducing time-to-hire without sacrificing quality. Show evidence of recruiting and retaining technical talent in competitive markets, with examples of winning against well-resourced companies. Have lived through the specific tensions of California employment law and understand how policy uncertainty interacts with rapid scaling and executive decision-making. Possess domain familiarity with manufacturing, aerospace, defense, or other hardware-intensive sectors, or the ability to quickly earn the trust of deep practitioners in these fields. Have designed and implemented performance management systems that meaningfully influenced outcomes, not just programs that exist on paper. Comfortably operate in environments where processes are undefined and you are expected to build systems from scratch rather than rely on inherited templates. Demonstrate strong judgment around risk, confidentiality, and employment documentation in a way that protects both employees and the company. Show resilience and stamina in roles that demand simultaneous ownership of multiple complex initiatives with ambiguous timelines. Have led change management efforts that shifted culture at scale, using communication, visibility, and data to guide teams through uncertainty. Demonstrate mastery of HRIS, ATS, and related tooling, with the ability to evaluate, select, and implement systems that support growth. Exhibit integrity, transparency, and consistency in how you manage sensitive information and navigate competing priorities among executive stakeholders. Communicate clearly and persuasively, with the ability to translate people data into narratives that influence strategic decisions at the highest levels.

Nice to have

Prior experience in manufacturing, aerospace, defense, or other hardware-intensive industries where operational rigor is non-negotiable. Exposure to regulated environments where compliance, documentation, and audit readiness directly affect business risk. Experience designing compensation and equity programs that align diverse stakeholders and scale predictably as the company grows. Background working with distributed teams and asynchronous collaboration tools, ensuring inclusion for those not always in the office.

Practical Notes

This position expects in-office work five days a week to enable close collaboration and cultural cohesion. Employment is full-time, and the role reports to the COO while partnering closely with the CEO and technical leadership. No specific compensation details are provided in this job description. The hire is expected to build and own systems that can scale from the current stage of the business through at least 5x growth. Candidates should be prepared to demonstrate how they have executed similar responsibilities in previous roles and the tangible outcomes they achieved.