Head of People

Crystal PM; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision

Hybrid work in Austin

401(k) with match

Flexible PTO

Ground-floor opportunity

Job summary

Crystal PM in Austin, TX seeks a Head of People to partner with the CEO on org design, compensation, and culture. You’ll shape hiring, talent development, and pay policies, acting as a strategic lever and hands-on operator who closes top candidates.

With 7+ years in people leadership at growth-stage SaaS, you’ll design performance systems, comp and leveling, and ensure HIPAA awareness and multi-state compliance while nurturing an employer brand that attracts A players in the Austin tech scene.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in people leadership roles at growth-stage companies (50–300 employees).
• Direct recruiting experience with ability to build pipelines from scratch.
• Built a performance management system from the ground up or significantly rebuilt one.
• Compensation and leveling experience; able to defend framework to board and explain to employees.
• Strong on operational/compliance side: HRIS, multi-state law, benefits renewals, HIPAA awareness.
• SaaS/healthcare software exposure preferred; PE-backed or search fund experience a plus.
• Active experimentation with AI for sourcing, offers, interviews, and policy testing.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the CEO on org design, compensation, and calls others don’t get to make.
• Own end-to-end recruitment strategy and close key candidates.
• Design and implement a scalable performance management system.
• Build and defend comp framework and leveling structure.
• Ensure HRIS and compliance processes are robust across states.
• Shape employer branding to attract A players, especially in Austin tech.

Skills

People leadership

Direct recruiting

Performance management

Compensation & leveling

HRIS administration

Multi-state employment law

HIPAA awareness

AI experimentation

SaaS/Healthcare exposure

Job description

Every day, over 10,000 eye care professionals log into Crystal PM’s software before they see their first patient. We’re the operating system behind independent eyecare — the EHR, practice management, billing, scheduling, and payments platform that keeps these practices running smoothly.

With new leadership, fresh growth capital from top-tier software and search fund investors, and a clear runway to $35mm+ in ARR, Crystal is at an inflection point. We’re not a startup – we’re a market leader focused on long-term value creation. That means building the team, the product, and the go-to-market engine to execute on our ambitious goals.

We’re assembling a team that matches the opportunity. If that sounds like your kind of challenge, we’d like to hear from you.

The Role

You report to the CEO and own everything people. How we hire. How we develop talent. How we pay. How we measure performance. How Crystal feels as a place to work. This is not an HR seat with a fancier title. It is a strategy seat where HR is one of the levers you pull.

Crystal is at the stage where every hire compounds. A bad hire today becomes a culture problem at 150 people. An A player today becomes the leader who hires the next ten A players. We are looking for someone obsessed with that math. Someone who treats recruiting like a competitive moat and culture like a product they ship every week.

You will be the CEO’s thought partner on org design, compensation, and the calls nobody else gets to make. You will also be the operator who picks up the phone, finds the candidate other firms missed, and closes them before a competitor knows their name.

What success in this role looks like

• You’ve built a hiring engine that finds A players on a predictable cadence. Time to fill is under 60 days for most roles. We close more than 70 percent of the offers we extend. Recruiting feels like a system, not a fire drill.
• A players don’t leave. Voluntary regrettable attrition stays under 8 percent. The people who matter most know they’re winning here, and they tell their friends. Our employer brand in Austin tech circles starts to bend in our favor.
• Performance management is real, not theater. Every employee has clear goals, regular feedback, and a clear sense of where they stand. Leaders are coaching, not just managing. The system runs without you babysitting it.
• Culture is defined and lived. Our five values show up in interview scorecards, performance reviews, and how we promote and fire. New hires can tell within their first week what we actually care about.
• You become the CEO’s first call on hard people decisions. Org structure, comp philosophy, executive conflict, hires that aren’t working out. You earn that seat because you bring judgment, not just process.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in people leadership roles, with at least 3 years owning the function (Head of People, VP People, CPO, or equivalent) at a growth-stage company between 50 and 300 employees.
• Direct recruiting experience. You’ve personally sourced, screened, and closed senior candidates. Not a “we’ll let the agency handle it” leader. You can build a pipeline from scratch when you have to.
• Built a performance management system from the ground up or significantly rebuilt one. You know what makes them useful and what makes them busywork.
• Comp and leveling experience. You can build the framework, defend it to a board, and explain it to a frustrated employee in the same week.
• Strong on the operational and compliance side. HRIS administration, multi-state employment law, benefits renewals, HIPAA awareness. You don’t love this work, but you do it well because it’s table stakes.
• SaaS, healthcare software, or vertical SaaS exposure preferred. PE-backed or search fund-backed company experience is a plus.
• Active experimentation with AI. You’re already using it to source candidates, draft offer letters, summarize interviews, and pressure-test policies. You see it as leverage, not a threat.

Personal Attributes

• Talent magnet. The best people you’ve worked with want to work with you again. Recruiting feels less like selling and more like inviting friends to something good.
• Truth-teller. You give hard feedback without softening it into uselessness. You also receive it the same way.
• Builder, not maintainer. You’d rather design the system than run someone else’s. You see a missing process and build it instead of complaining about it.
• Operationally rigorous. You believe spreadsheets and frameworks make culture stronger, not colder. Vibes don’t scale.
• Calm under heat. Layoffs, terminations, executive conflicts, comp disputes. You handle the hardest conversations with steadiness, not drama.
• Low ego, high standards. You’ll write the offer letter, run the engagement survey, and tell the CEO they’re wrong about a hire. All in the same day.
• Competitive compensation based on experience
• Health, dental and vision benefits
• Hybrid work flexibility with in-office collaboration in Austin
• 401(k) with matching company contribution
• Flexible PTO policy
• Ground-floor opportunity in a well-funded, fast-growing healthcare technology company

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.