Senior HR Business Partner

Hostelworld Group; Dublin; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary & benefits

Enhanced annual leave + wellbeing days

Paid family leave

Agile working

Growth & development

Inclusive people policies

Volunteering days

Job summary

Hostelworld Group plc is seeking a Senior HR Business Partner to join the People team for a 12‑month period. You will partner with Product and Technology leaders, support performance and rewards processes, and provide organisation design and change support across jurisdictions, including Ireland.

This remote-first role requires close collaboration with the Dublin office on Thursdays and applies AI-enabled people solutions.

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a senior HR Business Partner, ideally supporting product and technology teams in a tech, e-commerce or digital business.
• Recent, hands-on experience leading restructuring, consultation and organisation redesign, including in Ireland.
• Strong working knowledge of Irish employment law; experience across other European jurisdictions is a plus.
• Comfort moving quickly in a lean team, with the judgement to know when to act independently and when to elevate.
• Genuine curiosity about AI and how it changes work; you should be using AI tools and help others do the same.
• Credibility with senior leaders and the ability to challenge constructively.
• Clear, calm communicator who can explain change to people at every level.
• Commercial awareness and a practical, data-informed approach.

Responsibilities

• Coach and support Product and Technology managers to lead well: setting clear goals, holding good 1:1s, giving honest feedback and managing performance fairly, in line with our Manager Standards.
• Deliver our core people processes for your client groups, including the performance and reward cycle, goal setting, talent review and succession planning.
• Provide practical organisation design and change support as teams grow and evolve, applying our people principles consistently and fairly.
• Help teams build capability, including confidence with AI tools and our remote-first ways of working.
• Manage employee relations cases with sound judgement, applying our policies and employment law across the jurisdictions we operate in.
• Use people data to give leaders clear, evidence-based advice.
• Champion our Culture Code with your client groups, including through recruitment, onboarding and recognition.
• Act as a deputy to the CPO where needed, and work with colleagues across the People team on wider priorities.

Job description

***This role is a temporary contract with 12 months duration***

About Us

Hostelworld is the world's leading Social Travel platform - a social network-powered OTA on a mission to help travellers find their people and create unforgettable moments together. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Ireland, we're a team of around 270 people serving hostel partners across more than 180 countries.

Since launching our social network in 2022, we've welcomed over 3.4 million social members who aren't just booking trips, they're messaging, finding events, meeting up and becoming powerful brand advocates. This community generates a rich proprietary dataset of 16 million+ chat messages and 17 million bookings, powering AI-driven personalisation and network effects that no generalist OTA can replicate.

We are not just another OTA - we created an entirely new category – Social Travel. If you want to shape the future of travel by putting people and shared experiences at the heart of it, you'll fit right in here - Learn more about our Team!

Our Culture

At Hostelworld, our culture is a direct reflection of our customers: adventurous, curious, and social. We have a shared love of travel that fuels our work and connects us on a deeper level. It’s a fast-paced environment that blends the agility and "scrappy" resourcefulness of a start-up with the experience and ambition of a global, publicly listed company.

We are a team of pragmatic optimists who are data-obsessed and results-driven. We value a ‘test and learn’ mindset, encouraging experimentation and empowering our teams to take calculated risks. We believe in doing the right thing—for our customers, our partners, and each other. We foster a supportive and collaborative atmosphere where diverse perspectives are celebrated, and where every team member has the opportunity to make a significant impact on our journey. We embrace the journey, not just the destination, and we seek leaders who will thrive in a dynamic environment and inspire their teams to do the same.

LOCATION

This role is based in Ireland. We have an office hub in Dublin available for those who prefer a hybrid model where you can spend time with colleagues in-person. You will need to be able to commute to our office hub as required from time to time.

Who You'll Work With

We’re looking for an experienced Senior HR Business Partner to join our People team for 12 months, reporting directly to the Chief People Officer (CPO). This role is for someone who has done this work before and can make an impact from week one. You’ll partner with the leaders of our Product and Technology functions and act as a trusted second pair of hands to the CPO. Our People team exists to help people connect, learn and deliver, with practical, cost-effective People products that equip managers to bring out the best in everyone. In 2026 our focus is on four things: nurturing an inclusive, connected culture; building capability across the business; enabling managers to build high-performing teams; and building practical People products that work. This role will contribute across all four, with a particular focus on manager effectiveness and supporting Product and Technology teams as they grow and evolve. It’s a good time to join us. Like many companies, we’re working out where AI genuinely adds value, and we’re doing it by learning together. In 2025 the People team agreed a simple set of AI Tenets to guide how we use it responsibly, starting with protecting people’s data and always using our own judgement, and that work was shortlisted for an HR Leadership Award. You don’t need to be an AI expert to join us. What matters more is curiosity, sound judgement and a willingness to learn alongside us. Some of our strongest users today were sceptics a year ago. We're a remote-first company. We come together in our Dublin office every Thursday, and this is an expectation of the role. The rest of the week, you choose where you work best.

What You’ll Do

• Coach and support Product and Technology managers to lead well: setting clear goals, holding good 1:1s, giving honest feedback and managing performance fairly, in line with our Manager Standards.
• Deliver our core people processes for your client groups, including the performance and reward cycle, goal setting, talent review and succession planning.
• Provide practical organisation design and change support as teams grow and evolve, applying our people principles consistently and fairly.
• Help teams build capability, including confidence with AI tools and our remote-first ways of working.
• Manage employee relations cases with sound judgement, applying our policies and employment law across the jurisdictions we operate in.
• Use people data to give leaders clear, evidence-based advice.
• Champion our Culture Code with your client groups, including through recruitment, onboarding and recognition.
• Act as a deputy to the CPO where needed, and work with colleagues across the People team on wider priorities.

What We’re Looking For

• Significant experience as a senior HR Business Partner, ideally supporting product and technology teams in a tech, e-commerce or digital business.
• Recent, hands‑on experience of leading restructuring, consultation and organisation redesign, including in Ireland.
• Strong working knowledge of Irish employment law; experience across other European jurisdictions is a plus.
• Comfort moving quickly in a lean team, with the judgement to know when to act independently and when to elevate.
• Genuine curiosity about AI and how it changes work. You don't need to be a technical expert, but you should be using AI tools yourself and be keen to help others do the same.
• Credibility with senior leaders, and the ability to challenge constructively.
• A clear, calm communicator who can explain change to people at every level.
• Commercial awareness and a practical, data-informed approach.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary & benefits
• Enhanced annual leave plus 3 Wellbeing Days per year
• Paid family leave (maternity, paternity, surrogacy & adoption)
• Agile working (plus a Working from Abroad Policy!)
• Support for your ongoing growth & development
• Inclusive people policies (sickness, menopause, compassionate and fertility leave)
• A chance to give back to your local community with 5 paid volunteering days

OUR BEHAVIOURS

• Grow others - We fundamentally believe that investing in growing others benefits everyone, whether it's helping them develop hard or soft skills. We want learning and growing to be part of our DNA to help makes us a better team, together.
• Master it - We are obsessed with our area of expertise and enjoy developing our skills. We rarely take things at face value; we investigate, interrogate, and always look for ‘the why,’ and wherever possible, we use data to find the best solution.
• Collaborate - We are in it together, for the tough stuff and the celebrations too. To achieve the best results, we need expertise from all areas of the organisation, and we wholeheartedly welcome diverse thinking.
• Adapt - We work fluidly, adapting to new information and the evolving environment while staying committed to our goals. Innovation and experimentation fuel our projects and we’re never afraid to pivot.
• Deliver - Our focus is always on the end result; we value outcomes over activity. We collaborate to deliver work at speed without dropping any of our other behaviours.

We believe in talented and diverse teams that reflect the diversity of our customers and the communities in which we operate. Everyone brings different perspectives and experiences. We lay out the above requirements to guide applicants to the experiences that we believe will allow you to be successful in the role. If you don’t meet them all, please consider applying if you think you can still perform the role as described.

Hostelworld Group plc is a ground-breaking social network-powered Online Travel Agent ("OTA") with a clear mission to help travellers find people to hang out with.

Our mission is founded on the insight that most travellers go hostelling to meet other people. Our platform connects travellers through a range of social features, including city and hostel chat rooms, AI-powered recommendations, and event discovery, facilitating real-world interactions before, during and after their trips.

Hostelworld's vision is to be the world's leading social travel platform. Since launching its social network in 2022, the Group has welcomed over 4.0 million social members, with engagement growing faster than stays booked. Social members book approximately twice as frequently as non-members and are three times more likely to use the app, demonstrating the platform's utility and its contribution to customer lifetime value.

Our proprietary dataset, spanning over 4.0 million social members, 19.0 million chat messages and 19.0 million bookings since launch, strengthens our ability to understand traveller behaviour, personalise experiences, and build network effects that differentiate Hostelworld from generalist OTAs. This data asset, which is exclusively ours and compounds in value as our community grows, underpins our AI-powered matching and recommendation capabilities.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Ireland, Hostelworld is a recognised brand with around 275 employees, hostel and accommodation partners across more than 180 countries, and a growing suite of products including budget accommodation and Social Passes that extend the platform well beyond the traditional hostelling category.

Hostelworld has a long-standing commitment to improving the sustainability of the hostelling industry. The Group has introduced a hostel-specific Staircase to Sustainability framework, accredited by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, which helps partners adopt more sustainable practices while giving travellers clearer information for decision-making. Customers can choose to offset trip emissions, and for the fifth consecutive year the Group has retained the 'Taking Climate Action' label from South Pole.