Manager People Operations

Harness; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 5,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Harness, the AI Software Delivery Platform, seeks a Shared Services Manager for People Operations, India. You will build and lead the India-based shared services team responsible for onboarding, offboarding, compliance, HRIS data integrity and Workday operations, aligning with the December 2026 go-live.

The ideal candidate has 7+ years in HR/People Operations, 2+ years leading a team, and 4+ years of Workday experience.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in HR/People Operations.
• 2+ years directly managing a team.
• 4+ years hands-on Workday experience.
• Experience building or scaling shared-services.
• Experience in a global, matrixed environment.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Discretion handling sensitive personal, immigration, and compliance documents.
• Ability to design scalable processes and partner with global teams.

Responsibilities

• Hire, lead, coach, and develop the India-based People Operations shared services team.
• Own ticket SLA performance and reporting for global ticketing.
• Drive India employment-law compliance and update policies.
• Ensure annual compliance training for the India location.
• Collaborate on onboarding/offboarding processes for India hires and interns.
• Own HR data integrity strategy within Workday.
• Lead India-based Workday super-user activities post go-live.
• Assist employees with U.S. travel visas for business trips.
• Coordinate U.S. H-1B and green card case administration for India.
• Represent India’s processes in global Shared Services and Workday projects.
• Manage escalations and complex employee issues with discretion.

Skills

HR/People Ops

People management

Workday

Global collaboration

Communication

Stakeholder management

Discretion & compliance

Process improvement

Tools

Workday

Job description

Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform company, led by technologist and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal (founder of AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco for $3.7B). Harness has raised approximately $570M in funding and is valued at $5.5B, backed by leading investors including Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, Citi Ventures, and more. As AI accelerates code creation, the real bottleneck has shifted to everything after the code – testing, deployments, application security, reliability, compliance, and cost optimization. Harness brings AI and automation to this “outer loop,” helping teams ship software faster while maintaining security and governance throughout the entire software delivery lifecycle.

Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the Harness Platform applies deep context and intelligent automation across the software delivery lifecycle with governance and policy-driven controls embedded throughout the platform.

Over the past year, Harness powered over 185M deployments, 82M builds, 18T flag evaluations, 8M security scans, 9.1B optimized tests, 3T protected API calls, and helped manage $2.8B in cloud spend — enabling customers like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels to accelerate releases by up to 75%, reduce cloud costs by up to 60%, and achieve 10x DevOps efficiency.

With a global team across 26 offices and 27 countries, Harness is shaping the future of AI software delivery — and we’re looking for exceptional talent to help us move even faster.

POSITION SUMMARY:

As the Shared Services Manager for People Operations, India, you will lead and scale Harness's India-based People Operations shared services function. You'll build, manage, and develop a team responsible for onboarding, offboarding, compliance administration, HRIS data integrity, and Workday operations, while serving as an India-based Workday super-user following our December 2026 go-live. You will also lead India-based coordination of U.S. H-1B and green card case administration, partnering closely with Harness' U.S. based People Operations team. The ideal candidate is a player coach and combines proven people-management experience with genuine hands-on Workday expertise, is comfortable building scalable processes in an ambiguous, high-growth environment, and can represent India's operational needs to Harness’ global People Operations team and cross-functional stakeholders.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Hire, lead, coach, and develop a growing India-based People Operations shared services team, setting goals, KPIs, and SLAs for ticket resolution and case management
• Own end-to-end accountability for ticket SLA performance across the global ticketing system; build escalation procedures and reporting for leadership
• Drive India employment-law compliance for People Operations processes, updating policies and procedures as regulations evolve
• Ensure annual compliance training for the India location
• Partner with Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, and IT leadership to design and continuously improve onboarding and offboarding processes for India-based new hires and interns
• Own HR data integrity strategy within Workday, partnering with the broader People Operations team on India-specific configuration
• Serve as the senior India-based Workday super-user following go-live: lead troubleshooting, validate India-specific migrated data (offboarding records, change letters, EPF/supplemental leave, immigration documentation), and reduce dependency on external implementation partners
• Assist employees with obtaining travel visas for U.S. business travel
• Lead India-based coordination for U.S. H-1B and green card (PERM) case administration under the direction of Harness’ U.S. based People Operations team.
• Partner with People Business Partners to structure and absorb transactional work appropriately, freeing PBP capacity for higher-value partnering
• Represent India's process and staffing needs in the broader global shared-services and Workday transformation
• Manage escalations and complex employee issues, exercising judgment on when to involve legal, compliance, or senior leadership
• Deliver timely and accurate ticket resolution alongside the global People Operations team. Every team member dedicates a % of their time to resolving tickets and, by doing so, stays current on opportunities and delivers an exceptional employee experience

ABOUT YOU

• 7+ years of HR/People Operations experience, including at least 2+ years directly managing a team
• 4+ years of hands-on Workday experience
• Demonstrated experience building or scaling a shared-services or HR operations function
• Experience working in a global, matrixed environment, with an ability to handle complex problems independently
• Comfortable operating as a subject-matter expert and stakeholder into a cross-functional systems implementation project, not just as an end user of HR systems
• Excellent communication, coaching, and stakeholder-management skills
• Prior experience supporting or overseeing U.S. immigration processes (e.g., H-1B, green card/PERM) preferred
• High degree of discretion and judgment handling sensitive personal, immigration-related, and compliance documentation
• Excited to build and lead the employee-facing operations function for Harness's India presence, including driving our values internally and externally
• Ability to give and receive feedback from stakeholders and cross-functional partners and translate it into process improvements
• Highly organized and proactive, able to balance high-volume operational leadership with strategic project contributions

Harness in the news:

• Accelerating Our Mission to Bring AI to Everything After Code
• Goldman Sachs leads investment in software delivery startup Harness at $5.5 billion valuation
• How Harness runs 16 “startups within a startup” at scale | Jyoti Bansal
• Harness Research Shows AI Visibility Crisis Fueling Security Nightmare
• Harness has been named to the Inc. Power Partner list for software delivery success

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

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