Senior People & Culture lead

CDDS AG; Zürich; On-site; CHF 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Direct impact on mission

CEO collaboration

High ownership

Growth opportunities

Competitive compensation

Job summary

CDDS AG is seeking a head of people/talent acquisition to lead organisational design and hiring strategy across US and Europe. You will build scalable recruiting processes for engineering, robotics, autonomy, operations, and commercial functions, partnering with the CEO and leadership team to raise the talent bar.

You will shape onboarding, performance management, and career development programs, protect culture during rapid growth, and design compensation and retention strategies while hiring

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in talent acquisition, people leadership, organisational development, executive search, or related fields.
• Proven track record of hiring exceptional talent in high-performance environments.
• Strong ability to assess talent, potential, and cultural fit.
• Experience partnering closely with founders, executives, or senior leadership teams.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills.
• High ownership and willingness to operate hands-on.
• Strong judgment and ability to make decisions independently.
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving startup environment where priorities evolve rapidly.

Responsibilities

• Partnering directly with the CEO and leadership team on organizational design and hiring strategy.
• Building and scaling recruiting processes for engineering, robotics, autonomy, operations, and commercial functions.
• Identifying and engaging exceptional candidates across US and Europe.
• Designing interview systems that raise the talent bar.
• Creating onboarding experiences for rapid productivity.
• Developing performance management, feedback, and career development frameworks.
• Building leadership capabilities across the organisation.
• Shaping and protecting company culture during rapid growth.
• Designing compensation, retention, and talent development strategies.
• Supporting managers in hiring, team building, performance, and organisational challenges.
• Establishing people operations that scale with minimal bureaucracy.
• Helping navigate rapid growth while maintaining speed, accountability, and excellence.

Skills

Talent Acquisition

People Leadership

Executive Search

Organisational Development

Hiring Strategy

Communication

Job description

You want to help protect western values? You want to protect people and critical infrastructure – ultimately saving the lives of thousands.

You want to work at the frontier of high-performance autonomous systems.

Join us at CDDS to build CDDS into an elite organization capable of solving some of the hardest technical and operational challenges. You will build further the systems, processes, and culture that allow extraordinary people to do their best work.

We move at an extreme tempo and priorities are within EU and US. You should be comfortable operating in ambiguity, making decisions with imperfect information, and continuously evolving how we recruit, onboard, and develop talent as the company grows.

Tasks

• Partnering directly with the CEO and leadership team on organizational design and hiring strategy

• Building and scaling world-class recruiting processes for engineering, robotics, autonomy, operations, and commercial functions

• Identifying and personally engaging exceptional candidates across US and Europe

• Designing interview systems that consistently raise the talent bar

• Creating onboarding experiences that enable new hires to become highly productive quickly

• Developing performance management, feedback, and career development frameworks

• Building leadership capabilities across the organisation

• Shaping and protecting company culture during periods of rapid growth

• Designing compensation, retention, and talent development strategies

• Supporting managers in hiring, team building, performance, and organisational challenges

• Establishing people operations that scale without creating unnecessary bureaucracy

• Helping the company navigate rapid growth while maintaining speed, accountability, and excellence

Requirements

Your Profile

• 5+ years of experience in talent acquisition, people leadership, organisational development, executive search, or related fields

• Proven track record of hiring exceptional talent in high-performance environments

• Strong ability to assess talent, potential, and cultural fit

• Experience partnering closely with founders, executives, or senior leadership teams

• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills

• High ownership and willingness to operate hands-on

• Strong judgment and ability to make decisions independently

• Comfortable working in a fast-moving startup environment where priorities evolve rapidly

Requirements

Nice to have

• Experience scaling technical organisations from early-stage to growth-stage

• Background in recruiting for software, robotics, AI, autonomy, aerospace, or defence sectors

• Experience building people systems and organisational processes from scratch

• Executive search or headhunting experience

• Knowledge of compensation design and performance management

• Experience hiring internationally

• Understanding of startup scaling challenges and organisational design

Benefits

Why CDDS

• Direct impact on a mission-critical technology shaping US and Europe's security landscape

• Opportunity to work directly with the CEO and leadership team

• High ownership and influence on the future of the company

• Build and shape an organisation in hyper growth phase

• Work with highly ambitious, technical, and mission-driven people

• Fast-moving environment with significant personal growth opportunities

• Attractive compensation

Details

Location: Hardbrucke (Zürich), on-site

Start date: ASAP

Environment: High-impact deep-tech startup working on real deployments