HR Manager - Recruitment & People Operations

Desible.ai; India; On-site; INR 2,500,000 - 4,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Desible.ai is seeking the first HR leader to own recruitment and people operations, shaping culture, caliber, and velocity as we grow from 15 to 40+ people in six months.

You will own the complete recruitment pipeline, onboard rigorously, and partner with founders on the operating model to turn early chaos into scalable growth.

Qualifications

• Hands-on full-cycle recruitment experience across tech and business functions.
• Experience building scalable hiring pipelines in high-growth startups.
• Familiarity with India employment law and offer letter structuring.
• Comfort with founder-led decision-making and ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end recruitment across engineering, product, operations, and sales.
• Define role specs with hiring managers to translate startup context into compelling positioning.
• Source and screen candidates via LinkedIn, communities, referrals, and portfolios.
• Conduct first-stage interviews and manage candidate experience through offer.
• Create scalable recruiting SOPs (templates, guides, letters) while preserving the founder voice.
• Track metrics: time-to-hire, offer acceptance, retention signals, cost-per-hire.

Skills

Resourcefulness

Ownership

Communication

Bias toward building

Data orientation

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Rippling

BambooHR

Job description

HR Manager - Recruitment & People Operations

• Role: HR Manager - Recruitment & People Operations
• Reporting To: Co-Founders

THE OPPORTUNITY

Desible.ai is building the enterprise voice AI operating system for Indian insurance - a vertical-native platform processing 300K+ daily calls and backed by institutional capital. We're scaling from 15 to 40+ people over the next 6 months, and the person who owns our people function will shape the culture, caliber, and velocity of every hire we make.

This is not an HR admin role. This is the first HR leader at a growth-stage start-up where every hiring decision compounds into product quality, operational discipline, and investor credibility. You'll own the complete recruitment pipeline, build onboarding rigor, and partner directly with founders on the operating model that turns early-stage chaos into scale.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Recruitment & Talent Acquisition (60%)

• Build and own the full-cycle recruitment pipeline across engineering, product, operations, and sales
• Partner with hiring managers to define role specs and evaluation criteria - translating start-up context into compelling positioning
• Source and screen across all channels: LinkedIn, niche communities, referrals, university networks, portfolio platforms (Fueler, GitHub, Dribbble for specialized roles)
• Conduct first-stage interviews and manage candidate experience from application through offer negotiation
• Build recruiting SOPs that scale - templates, interview guides, offer letters, reference checks - without losing the founder's voice.
• Track hiring metrics: time-to-hire, offer acceptance rate, quality-of-hire signal (30/60/90-day retention), cost-per-hire

People Operations & Culture (30%)

• Design and execute onboarding for first 40+ hires - including KMPs (Key Management Personnel), compliance for founder vesting, cap table clarity
• Build company handbook, employment policies, and compliance frameworks for a VC-backed entity (offer letters, confidentiality agreements, ESOP allocation, severance)
• Own employee lifecycle: compensation reviews, feedback cycles, exit management
• Initiate culture programs in Year 1 that scale: team rituals, values documentation, learning budgets, wellness touchpoints
• Partner with Finance on payroll, benefits, and compliance (statutory contributions, tax filings, employee records)

Strategic People Moments (10%)

• Advise founders on compensation positioning (salary bands, equity grants, bonus structures) for competitive hiring
• Surface people signals: early flight risk, team dynamics issues, retention risks
• Participate in board-level conversations on org design, headcount planning, and team structure

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE

• 4–6 years of HR experience, with at least 2 years in a high-growth, VC-backed environment.
• Hands-on full-cycle recruitment: sourcing, screening, interview loops, offer negotiation - not just process management
• Built hiring pipelines that scaled teams from 20 to 100+ people
• Familiarity with India employment law, statutory compliance, and offer letter structuring
• Comfort with ambiguity and founder-led decision-making (not consensus-driven or process-heavy)
• “Mention your Favourite Hollywood movie in subject line while you share resume”

Experience that matters:

• SaaS, B2B software, or technology startup scaling phase (not enterprise HR)
• Experience hiring for specialized roles (engineers, product, data scientists) - not just generalist recruitment.
• Managed ESOP/equity communication or cap table coordination.
• Built or improved recruiting from scratch (templates, frameworks, playbooks)
• Comfortable with start-up scrappiness: wearing multiple hats, ambiguous briefs, rapid iteration

NICE-TO-HAVES

• Background in regulated industries (fintech, insurance, healthcare) - not required, but IRDAI/RBI context is a plus
• Experience with AI/ML hiring or deep tech recruitment
• Experience building HR tech integrations (ATS, payroll systems, HRIS tools like Rippling, BambooHR)
• MBA or formal HR certification (not required; execution beats credentials)
• Prior experience reporting to founders or in founder-led organizations

SKILLS & MINDSET

• Resourcefulness: Can solve problems creatively with limited budget (no enterprise HR tools, minimal team)
• Ownership: Sees a hiring gap and fills it; doesn't wait for approval to move
• Communication: Can pitch the company compellingly to candidates and translate founder vision into clear role descriptions
• Bias toward building: Would rather create a new onboarding doc than perfect a template
• Data orientation: Tracks metrics, optimizes based on data, not gut feel
• Cross-functional collaboration: Comfortable working directly with tech leads, product managers, and finance to understand hiring needs

WHY DESIBLE

• Genuine impact: Every hire you make goes into a platform processing 300K+ daily calls across India's insurance ecosystem. Recruiting a great engineer directly affects product quality for millions of policyholders.
• Founder partnership: You report directly to co-founders who respect people/ops deeply - this isn't a cost center, it's a competitive edge. Your voice in strategy conversations is real.
• Build from zero: You're not inheriting a 50-person HR structure - you're designing it. Your frameworks, your culture values, your processes become the DNA of how 100+ people work.
• Investor-grade credibility: You're building for a board-ready organization, which means your work gets seen and valued by institutional investors and enterprise clients.
• Learning velocity: High-growth startups compress 5 years of learning into 18 months. You'll touch recruitment, compensation design, employee relations, compliance, culture building, and board governance - all simultaneously.
• Market timing: AI/Insurance is one of India's fastest-growing sectors. You're building the org for a company positioned to own a workflow category.

THE HIRING PROCESS

• Initial chat (30 min): Phone call to understand your background, what you're looking for, and fit
• Founder conversation (60 min): Deep-dive with Co-founders on operating model, culture philosophy, and your approach
• Reference calls: We'll call your former founders/hiring managers to validate full-cycle recruitment chops

Timeline: Targeting hire within 4 weeks of first conversation.

• Your resume along with your Linkedin profile
• 2–3 line answer: What's one hiring challenge you solved that you're proud of?
• Available to start:

We read every application. Decisions within 2 weeks.