Senior People Partner

orbital; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Orbital is seeking a Senior People Partner to work directly with our Product Engineering leadership, owning the design and build of scalable people solutions that grow with the business.

You will coach leaders, manage performance and team health, and develop enablement tools and processes. You’ll help launch our line manager capability programme and drive a High Performance mindset across Product Engineering.

Qualifications

• Strong People Partnering experience, ideally supporting Engineering, Product or Technical teams.
• UK employment law you can own end to end: complex ER cases, your call, no hand-holding.
• A product manager's instinct: you diagnose before you design, and you measure what you ship.

Responsibilities

• Partner closely with Product Engineering leadership to coach them through performance, team health, and people challenges.
• Turn insights into scalable people solutions: frameworks, enablement tools, programmes, and processes.
• Launch the line manager capability programme and build a trusted partnership with the Product Engineering leadership team.
• Help shape the High Performance mentality for Product Engineering: high performers recognised, under performers managed with clarity.

Skills

People Partnering

Engineering teams

Product teams

UK employment law

Stakeholder management

Job description

Orbital is the AI platform for real estate legal work.

Real estate shapes the world around us: our homes, our workplaces and our cultural landmarks. It's the infrastructure that powers everyday life and is the world's largest asset class. Yet behind every single deal, real estate and legal teams work hard to navigate decades-old complexity; manually connecting documents, hidden obligations, geo-spatial context, and multiple parties into a path forward. We connect the legal and physical record, so that path is clearer than ever before. Our mission is to make real estate transactions faster, clearer, and less manual.

Here, you'll be part of changing how the deals behind the largest asset class get transacted, and will help shape the future of real estate.

A bit about us:

• We're building at the forefront of AI technology, without losing the deeply human expertise our clients depend on.
• Orbital is built with former practising real estate lawyers and 250+ years of combined legal expertise. We're purpose-built for the complexity of real estate: accelerating due diligence, drafting and negotiation, and deal coordination with legal-grade precision.
• We've just raised a $60m Series B, led by Brighton Park Capital, to accelerate our global expansion - $75m raised to date.
• We're trusted by 5,000+ real estate professionals, spanning UK Magic Circle and US Am Law 100 firms, to household names like M&S. Leading firms like BCLP, Orrick, Goodwin, Womble Bond Dickinson and Clifford Chance rely on Orbital to remove the busywork, freeing legal and real estate teams to focus on sharp judgment, standout client service, and closing deals faster.
• Working at Orbital means joining a bold, ambitious team, with the trust to take ownership and make a real impact from day one.

About the role

As the Senior People Partner you'll be the sole dedicated Partner partnering directly with our Product Engineering leadership and team while also owning the design and build of people solutions that actually scale.

What you'll be doing

You’ll sit across two layers of how our People function operates: Partner and Product. As a Partner, you’ll work closely with Product Engineering leadership, coaching them through performance, team health, and people challenges, and building the kind of trusted relationships that give you real signal on what needs fixing. This leadership audience moves fast, has a high bar, and wants a peer, not a support function. As a Product builder, you’ll take those insights and turn them into scalable solutions. Frameworks, enablement tools, programmes, and processes that don't just solve the immediate problem but grow with the business. Your early focus will include owning and launching our line manager capability programme, and building a trusted partnership with the Product Engineering leadership team. You'll also be central to delivering our High Performance mentality for Product Engineering: high performers recognised, under performers managed with clarity, middle band genuinely enabled. You'll help shape the roadmap, not just inherit one.

What you'll enjoy about this role

You’ll have real proximity to leadership and genuine autonomy over how you build. The Product Engineering team will push back on you and expects you to push back too. If that sounds like the right kind of challenge, you’ll thrive here. You’re also joining at the moment it matters where it’s early enough to shape how this function is built.

What this role is not

This isn’t a role for someone who needs a playbook to get started as it will be quite reactive and chaotic for the first few months, at least until you get your feet under the desk, understand the gaps and how proactive process can improve the workload. It's not right for someone who's stronger on one side of either the partnering or the building, because both genuinely matter. If you're looking for a steady state to manage, this isn't it.

What we're looking for

• Strong People Partnering experience, ideally supporting Engineering, Product or Technical teams
• UK employment law you can own end to end: complex ER cases, your call, no hand-holding
• A product manager's instinct: you diagnose before you design, and you measure what you ship
• Energised by ambiguity and building from scratch
• Both the strategic thinking and the hands-on drive to see things through
• Confident to push back on senior stakeholders, and the judgement to know how
• Curious about AI and technology and actively looking for ways to work smarter
• Scale-up background in tech or legaltech, Series A-C, 50-400 people, is a strong plus

The process

• Screening call (60 min)
• Hiring Manager call (60 min)
• Take-home task
• On-site panel and culture conversation (90 min)
• Offer

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