Vice President of Human Resources

About the role

You will serve as a strategic HR leader shaping how Xcimer organizes and develops its workforce to advance its mission. You will advise executive leadership on people strategy, workforce planning, and leadership effectiveness while designing structures that support rapid growth. You will build and mentor a high-caliber HR organization and lead initiatives that strengthen culture, manage employee relations, and ensure compliance.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Partner with executive leadership to define, articulate, and reinforce cultural principles and leadership expectations while aligning behaviors with strategic goals.
• Develop and execute a long-term People strategy that supports rapid growth from R&D through commercialization and multi-site expansion, ensuring structure and capabilities scale with business needs.
• Build, mentor, and lead a world-class Human Resources organization spanning HR Business Partners, Total Rewards, HR Operations, Learning & Development, and Employee Experience.
• Lead compensation, equity, executive compensation, performance management, promotion, and career development programs to maintain market competitiveness and internal equity.
• Develop scalable people systems, policies, and operating rhythms that enable high performance while preserving an entrepreneurial culture.
• Drive workforce planning and talent development initiatives to attract, develop, and retain exceptional technical and business talent across the organization.
• Lead complex employee relations matters, investigations, and risk management activities while partnering with Legal and executive leadership to ensure full compliance.
• Monitor cultural health through engagement analytics, manager effectiveness metrics, retention trends, and qualitative insights to identify cultural drift or emerging risks.
• Establish governance mechanisms that reinforce cultural expectations and address misaligned leadership behaviors through structured processes and decision frameworks.
• Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local employment regulations to establish best-in-class HR governance and operational excellence.
• Develop annual people budgets, headcount planning models, and organizational investment strategies that align with company objectives and growth priorities.
• Serve as a visible culture champion reinforcing mission, values, and leadership principles through consistent communication and role modeling.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, or a related field; a Master's degree or MBA is preferred.
• 15+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, including executive-level leadership in high-growth technology, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, energy, defense, or similarly complex engineering organizations.
• Proven experience scaling organizations through rapid growth while building modern HR systems, processes, and leadership capability.
• Proven experience partnering directly with executive leadership on organizational strategy and executive decision-making.
• Deep expertise across organizational design, leadership development, employee relations, total rewards, performance management, HR operations, compliance, and workforce planning.
• Experience building and leading high-performing HR teams capable of operating in complex, mission-driven environments.
• Demonstrated experience shaping culture through leadership development, organizational design, performance systems, and manager capability building.
• Strong business acumen connecting people strategy to organizational performance and business outcomes.
• Exceptional executive communication, influence, and change management skills with demonstrated success leading enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.
• Proven ability to assess cultural health, identify organizational risks, and guide leadership through complex culture-related decisions or interventions.
• Experience leveraging HR technology, analytics, and workforce data to improve organizational effectiveness and business performance.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident, or lawfully admitted refugee or asylee.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting organizations scaled from fewer than 200 employees to more than 1,000 employees.
• Experience supporting engineering, scientific research, hardware development, manufacturing, or deep-tech organizations.
• Experience designing executive compensation and equity programs for venture-backed companies.
• Experience leading organizations through commercialization, manufacturing scale-up, or international expansion.
• Familiarity with government contracting, export controls, security-cleared workforces, or regulated industries.
• Experience implementing enterprise HRIS, talent management, and people analytics platforms.
• Demonstrated success building high-performance cultures within mission-driven organizations.
• Experience scaling culture through rapid growth, multi-disciplinary technical teams, and multi-site expansion in engineering-centric environments.

Engineering methods

Not applicable

Relevant systems

Xcimer

Practical notes

U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, refugee, or asylum status required.