Principal People Partner

About the role

This role partners closely with the Product and Technology organization to shape a high-performance, values-driven culture at GoFundMe. You will translate business priorities into clear people strategies and actions that directly improve team effectiveness, performance, and organizational health. As a trusted advisor, coach, and problem solver, you will work across teams to diagnose challenges, recommend solutions, and drive measurable outcomes. Your ability to bring structure to ambiguity and influence key decisions will directly impact the organization's effectiveness and scalability. You will own the end-to-end employee experience for your assigned product and technology clients, ensuring alignment with GoFundMe's mission of helping people help each other.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Analyze product and engineering team dynamics to design targeted interventions that elevate performance and collaboration.
• Architect and implement talent strategies in partnership with leaders to drive growth, engagement, and retention within critical technology teams.
• Convert complex business priorities into concrete people plans covering performance management, organizational design, and workforce planning.
• Orchestrate performance processes such as calibration, promotions, and performance reviews to ensure consistent, high-quality outcomes.
• Coach managers on feedback, accountability, and team effectiveness to strengthen leadership capability across the product and technology organization.
• Diagnose organizational health trends using quantitative data and qualitative insights to define actionable, evidence-based recommendations.
• Support team-level and multi-team organizational design efforts, including role clarity, restructuring, and span-of-control adjustments.
• Navigate sensitive employee relations matters with sound judgment, balancing business outcomes, employee experience, and legal considerations.
• Partner with People, Talent, and Workplace teams to execute programs and ensure operational excellence across the full employee lifecycle.
• Identify emerging risks such as attrition signals, performance gaps, and engagement declines, and drive follow-through on mitigation plans.
• Facilitate alignment sessions between product and technology stakeholders to resolve people-related blockers and unblock strategic initiatives.
• Evaluate the impact of people programs and iterate based on feedback and outcome measurements to continuously improve effectiveness.
• Serve as a subject matter expert on organizational design and talent strategy for the product and technology domains.
• Build strong, credible relationships with senior leaders through consistent judgment, business context, and high-quality coaching.

Requirements

• Hold a Bachelor's degree and bring a strong background in People Partnering, ideally within a fast-growing technology company.
• Demonstrate prior experience partnering with product, engineering, or technical teams, with a strong preference for this capability.
• Show the ability to connect people strategies to concrete business outcomes and make decisions grounded in thoughtful tradeoffs.
• Proven experience navigating complex, ambiguous problems and defining clear, actionable paths forward without needing constant direction.
• Exhibit a track record of influencing senior stakeholders and guiding decisions through strong perspectives and sound judgment.
• Have experience handling sensitive people matters and partnering effectively with Legal and other compliance stakeholders.
• Possess strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to bring clarity, alignment, and consensus across diverse stakeholders.
• Demonstrate the ability to lead cross-functional initiatives, maintain momentum, and ensure rigorous follow-through on commitments and outcomes.
• Be comfortable operating in ambiguity, creating structure, and driving alignment among stakeholders with competing priorities.
• Be highly emotionally intelligent, self-aware, and skilled at building trust and psychological safety on diverse teams.

Nice to have

• Preferred items from the source are not specified beyond the core requirements and qualifications listed above.

Practical notes

• The engagement is detailed in the source materials and should be reviewed for specific hours, travel expectations, and deadlines.
• The role requires occasional travel to team offsites at one of the company's hubs in the US and Argentina.
• Candidates must be based in the San Francisco Bay Area and able to come into the San Francisco office two times per week.
• All other practical details regarding schedule, compensation, and benefits are outlined in the source content and should be consulted for complete information.