Founding People Lead (m/f/d)

Optiml; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Direct impact

Ownership of tooling

Growth exposure

Culture shaping

Learning and development budget

Job summary

Optiml seeks a Founding People Lead to build the people function from the ground up in London. You will design automated systems, treat People Ops as a product, and scale hiring across commercial, technical, and operational roles.

You'll own end-to-end responsibilities—from recruiting and onboarding to performance management and HR operations—while shaping culture in a distributed, hub-and-spoke setup with hubs in Zurich and London. This role requires strategic, hands-on leadership.

Qualifications

• 4–7 years in People Ops, HR or Recruitment, ideally in a startup or fast-paced setting.
• Ownership of full people function or major processes end-to-end from scratch.
• Track record in full-cycle recruiting across multiple roles and departments.
• Strong stakeholder management across distributed teams and founders.
• Business acumen to align people decisions with business needs.
• Builder mentality; daily use of AI tools to remove manual work.
• Excellent English; German a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end recruitment across commercial, technical, and operational roles.
• Build and automate onboarding, offboarding, and performance workflows.
• Own the people tech stack and reduce manual admin.
• Design culture rituals and communication systems for a distributed team.
• Lead HR operations and compliance across entities; interface with Head of Operations.

Skills

People Ops ownership

Startup experience

Full-cycle recruiting

Stakeholder management

English proficiency

AI tooling mindset

Tools

Notion

Slack

AI agents

HRIS

Job description

About Optiml
Optiml is transforming real estate with Real Estate Decision Intelligence (REDI), an AI-powered decision technology that helps decarbonize buildings while optimizing asset and portfolio financial performance.

Our platform helps investors, owners, and asset managers make clearer capital allocation and decarbonisation decisions by translating complex regulatory, financial, and technical constraints into actionable renovation and investment plans.

Founded as an ETH Zurich spin-off, Optiml launched its first product in April 2024 and is now scaling across Europe and the US, with teams based in Zurich, London, and across Germany/the EU. The company is backed by leading US and European investors, including Innovation Endeavors (the fund of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt), Planet A Ventures, KOMPAS, BitStone Capital, and The Bau Ventures. Following an oversubscribed €8M Seed round, we are accelerating product development and go-to-market execution.

The opportunity

We are looking for a Founding People Lead (m/f/d) to build Optiml's people function from the ground up. You will get the chance to treat People Ops like a product, designing automated systems instead of running the same process manually every time, so a lean team can operate like a much bigger one.

You will own the full people function end-to-end: recruiting and hiring across commercial, technical, and operational roles, onboarding, performance and HR operations.

Optiml runs hub-and-spoke, with Zurich and London as physical hubs and the international and diverse team distributed across CH, DE and the UK. Culture here does not happen by default; it has to be designed. You will own how onboarding runs, how offsites are structured, and how a distributed team stays connected.

You will thrive here if you build from first principles, are comfortable with ambiguity, and see the people function as a system to design. You make people's decisions from the business need backwards and are a credible sparring partner for founders, not only an executor.

Tasks

What you will own

E2E Recruitment

• Own recruiting and hiring end-to-end across commercial, technical, and operational roles
• Partner with hiring managers to define role requirements, build structured interview kits, and standardise candidate communication

Build and scale an automated people function

• Build and automate onboarding, offboarding, and performance-review workflows using the AI-native stack (Notion, Slack, AI agents)
• Own the people tech stack: evaluate and implement tools and automations that cut manual admin

Grow and protect the culture

• Design and own culture rituals and communication systems that work across a distributed, hub-and-spoke team
• Plan and help run team offsites and culture initiatives
• Run performance management (30/60/90s, probation reviews) and continuously automate the repeatable parts
• Act as the day-to-day point of contact for employees on culture, wellbeing, and people questions

Run HR operations and compliance

• Own HR administration and compliance across the CH, DE, and UK entities: contracts, amendments, employee records, and local employment law, partnering with the Head of Operations
• Manage day-to-day employee relations - performance concerns, grievances, and sensitive situations - escalating appropriately
• Support compensation and benefits administration: salary reviews, benchmarking, and benefits setup and renewal across entities

Requirements

Requirements

• 4-7 years in People Ops or Engineering, HR or Recruitment, including time in a startup or high-paced environment - or a strong track record in an adjacent field (operations, consulting, founder's office) with a genuine pull toward people and culture work
• Proven ownership of a full people function or key processes end-to-end: you have built structure from scratch without a roadmap and kept several workstreams running in parallel
• Track record owning full-cycle recruiting across different roles and departments: sourcing, screening, and closing
• Strong stakeholder management and experience in building trusted relationships across a distributed team and with founders
• Business acumen, understanding the business model, stage, and priorities, and make people and hiring decisions from the business need backwards
• Builder mentality: Using AI tools daily in your own workflow and are energized by removing manual, repeatable work
• Track record setting up and improving HR operations end-to-end: HRIS, processes, policies, and compliance is ideal
• Strong written and verbal English; German as a nice-to-have
• Based in or able to work from London, and willing to travel to Zurich and offsites

Benefits

• Direct impact: Play a critical role in scaling a company transforming how real estate decarbonizes
• Ownership: Build and own the people function's tooling and systems from scratch, not inherit someone else's stack
• Growth: Work closely with leadership and gain exposure across all company functions
• Culture: Join a mission-driven, high-performance, distributed team you will help shape
• Learning and development budget