People Operations Specialist

Pencil; Greater London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days PTO plus holidays

Health insurance

Wellness stipend

Remote - work from home

Enhanced parental leave

Office access in The Shard, London

Flexible working hours

Job summary

Pencil is transforming People Ops with automation and AI-driven workflows. You will own the data and systems behind our People Ops stack (HiBob, Ashby, Remote), turning slow multi-tool processes into near-self-running automations while shipping iteratively and improving quickly.

You’ll design end-to-end onboarding automation, manage data integrity across HR systems, and establish guardrails and SOPs. This role thrives on practical builder instincts in a remote-friendly, high-growth environment.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building automations and AI agents.
• Experience with structured data and APIs; good data governance.
• Experience administering SaaS platforms (permissions, workflows, integrations).

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain automations and AI agents across People Ops tooling.
• Own the data layer: ensure data cleanliness and resolve integration issues.
• Run end-to-end onboarding and automate manual steps.
• Administer lifecycle changes across systems and build data guardrails.
• Create SOPs, checklists, and playbooks; keep processes documented.
• Partner with stakeholders on UK employment/compliance decisions.

Skills

Automation tooling

AI agents

APIs & data schemas

Remote work experience

Tools

Zapier

Make

n8n

Retool

HiBob

Ashby

Remote

Job description

At Pencil, we are driving innovation in advertising technology through our state-of-the-art SaaS product, which harnesses Generative AI to redefine content creation. Our mission is to make AI the default in advertising without replacing creative people. To achieve this, we need to make sure that our technology isn’t just in the hands of big brands - we need to try to help small businesses and creative individuals too.

We're looking for someone who loves building automations, agents and workflows, and wants to point that instinct at People Ops. You'll own the data and systems behind our People Ops stack (HiBob, Ashby, Remote), and use that ownership as the foundation for turning slow, manual, multi-tool processes into things that mostly run themselves. This is a role for someone who'd rather ship a working automation this week and improve it next week than spend a month planning the perfect system - someone who gets a genuine kick out of making the unglamorous stuff disappear. You’ll bring expertise, energy, and commercial thinking to help us elevate our People processes.

Key responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain automations, workflows, and AI agents across our People Ops tooling (HiBob, Ashby, Remote) - from a simple triggered workflow to a more sophisticated internal agent - turning multi-step manual processes into things that run themselves.

• Own the data layer everything else depends on: keep HiBob/Ashby/Remote data clean, resolve integration and schema issues between systems, and treat data integrity as the foundation of what you build, not an afterthought.

• Run new joiner onboarding end to end, but treat every manual step you touch twice as a candidate for automation, with the goal is to keep making the process faster and lighter-touch, not just execute it reliably.

• Administer employee lifecycle changes (promotions, transfers, terminations) across systems, and build the guardrails - validation rules, alerts, review steps etc, that catch data errors before they become a downstream mess in payroll or compliance.

• Process documentation: create and maintain SOPs, checklists, and playbooks for onboarding, offboarding, and systems admin current as processes evolve, so nothing lives only in your head.

• Partner with relevant stakeholders on anything touching UK employment or compliance judgement calls while you build fluency here. You own the system and the escalation path, and that ownership shifts to you over time.

Your background:

• You can genuinely build: hands-on with automation/workflow tools (e.g. Zapier, Make, n8n, Retool or similar), and you've actually built or configured AI agents.

• You've worked with structured data and APIs enough to reason about schemas, integrations, and what breaks when two systems disagree with each other.

• You're comfortable being the systems administrator of SaaS platforms: owning permissions, workflows, and integrations, ideally across an HRIS/ATS/EOR stack (HiBob, Ashby, Remote) or a comparable set of business systems.

• You've worked in a high-growth environment, ideally remote and across multiple geographies, and you're comfortable working async across EMEA time zones.

• Any exposure to People Ops, HR systems, or UK employment practices is a genuine bonus, not a

• requirement - we're hiring for the builder instinct first, and will coach the domain knowledge.

You’ll Thrive Here If You…

• You're an Owner. You don't wait to be told the onboarding flow needs fixing, you notice the friction and you just fix it.

• You're Fast. You'd rather ship a working automation this week and improve it next week than spend a month designing the perfect one.

• You like Simple. Your default build is the one with the fewest moving parts, not the most impressive one.

• You find Surprising in the unglamorous stuff. You get a kick out of turning "someone does this by hand every month" into something nobody thinks about again.

• You're Human, even with agents. You know the systems you're building sit behind someone's first week at a new job, or a colleague's benefits question — you design for that person, not just for the workflow diagram.

KPIs & Success Measures

• Number and scope of manual People Ops processes automated, and time saved per cycle

• HiBob / Ashby / Remote data accuracy rate

• Time to resolve employee systems requests

• Reduction in error rate flowing into compliance-relevant fields

Benefits:

• 25 days PTO plus public holidays, although we operate a Flexible Time Off scheme

• Health insurance / private medical cover

• Monthly stipend towards wellness, fitness, and learning and development

• Remote - work from anywhere in your home country

• Enhanced parental leave policies, whether you become a parent through birth, adoption or surrogacy

• Access to our Pencil office in The Shard, London for UK employees

• Flexible working hours