Founding People Ops Leader — Hybrid DC

Your IT Recruiter; Washington; Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (stock options)

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with Roth option

Paid parental leave

PTO 17–25 days

Job summary

Schemata, a Washington, DC–area startup, seeks a founding People & Operations leader to own HR, recruiting, and back-of-house operations. You will build the function from the ground up, establish policies, and design scalable processes as the team grows beyond 15 people.

This is a builder role with broad scope and direct impact on how the company runs. You’ll drive onboarding, payroll, benefits, compliance, and hiring while partnering with the COO and the founding team.

Qualifications

• 3+ years across people operations, HR, recruiting, operations, or executive support, ideally at a startup or small company.
• Working knowledge of payroll, benefits, onboarding, and basic compliance.
• Organized and capable of handling multiple tasks without missing details.
• Ability to take ownership and actively solve problems.
• Maintain confidentiality with mature judgment.
• Willingness to build a function and grow with the company.

Responsibilities

• Build and run people operations from the ground up, including onboarding, offboarding, and records.
• Own compensation workflows, benefits programs, and policy development across states.
• Implement performance cycles, feedback surveys, and manager support as we scale.
• Drive recruiting: postings, sourcing, interview coordination, and candidate experience.
• Run offers, background checks, and onboarding handoffs to ensure smooth transitions.
• Oversee office logistics, vendor management, and back-of-house projects.

Skills

People operations

HR fundamentals

Recruiting

Organization & multi-tasking

Tools

Rippling

Human Interest 401(k)

Notion

Job description

Schemata, a Washington, DC–area startup, seeks a founding People & Operations leader to own HR, recruiting, and back-of-house operations. You will build the function from the ground up, establish policies, and design scalable processes as the team grows beyond 15 people.

This is a builder role with broad scope and direct impact on how the company runs. You’ll drive onboarding, payroll, benefits, compliance, and hiring while partnering with the COO and the founding team.