People & Culture Operations Partner

SmartBear; Somerville (MA); On-site; USD 95,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

SmartBear’s Somerville, MA headquarters seeks a People & Culture Operations Partner to support benefits, payroll, and compliance across a global team. You will handle inquiries, drive employee relations, and help optimize HR processes within a hybrid workspace.

You will collaborate with a distributed team, ensuring accurate benefit administration, timely payroll support, and adherence to local laws while fostering a positive employee experience in a fast-paced tech environment.

Qualifications

• 3–5+ years of experience in an HR Coordinator, HR Generalist, People Operations, or similar People & Culture role.
• Strong understanding of HR compliance, benefits administration, leaves, and employee relations.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Self-starter who can drive projects across a global, distributed team.
• Strong organizational skills and analytical abilities with Excel.

Responsibilities

• Report to the Sr. Director, People Operations, and partner with the global People & Culture team.
• Own and support key P&C programs including benefits, COBRA, leaves of absence, payroll support, investigations, performance management, employee engagement, and training compliance.
• Own operational support for U.S. benefits programs and support benefits administration across global offices.
• Handle employment inquiries and escalate complex matters as needed.
• Collaborate with managers to support engagement, performance, retention, and development.
• Participate in employee relations meetings, investigations, and terminations with confidentiality.
• Assist with immigration processes and generate reports on P&C metrics.
• Coordinate with global P&C teams to align processes across offices.

Skills

Benefits administration

Employee relations

Payroll support

HR compliance

Excel

ADP

BambooHR

HRIS

Communication skills

Tools

BambooHR

ADP

Job description

Somerville, Massachusetts, United States SmartBear delivers application integrity for modern tech stacks, ensuring continuous, measurable assurance that software just works as intended with governance to operate at AI speed and scale. SmartBear offers deep test automation, API lifecycle management, and observability capabilities. With integrations across the SDLC, it sets a new quality standard for application delivery teams. SmartBear is trusted by developers, testers, and software engineers across 32,000 organizations, including 75% of the largest financial institutions and industry leaders such as Adobe, JetBlue, and Microsoft. SmartBear’s open source tools are downloaded more than 100 million times a month and have earned over 30,000 GitHub stars from the developer community. With its best-loved brands, including Swagger, TestComplete, Reflect, QMetry, Zephyr, and more, SmartBear meets customers where they are to make our technology-driven world a better place. Learn more at www.smartbear.com , or follow us on LinkedIn , X , and Reddit . At SmartBear, you will be part of a dynamic team solving one of the most critical challenges facing modern businesses: ensuring the integrity of software in an AI-driven world. Whether you are working directly with customers, driving go to market strategies, supporting operations, building products, or enabling teams, your contributions help shape the future of software quality for organizations worldwide. Join us in our mission.

People & Culture Operations Partner

Key Responsibilities

• Report to the Sr. Director, People Operations, and partner closely with the global People & Culture team.
• Own and support key P&C programs including benefits, COBRA, leaves of absence, payroll support, investigations, performance management, employee engagement, and mandatory training compliance.
• Own operational support for U.S. benefits programs and support benefits administration across our global offices, including open enrollment, policy updates, vendor coordination, payroll deductions, employee questions, and employee communications.
• Handle employment-related inquiries from employees and managers, escalating complex or sensitive matters to the appropriate P&C team members.
• Partner with managers to provide consultative support across employee engagement, performance management, retention, and talent development.
• Participate in employee relations meetings, investigations, and terminations while maintaining professionalism, discretion, and confidentiality.
• Support compliance with applicable federal, state, and local employment requirements, partnering with internal and external experts where needed.
• Assist with immigration-related processes and generate reports that provide visibility into key employee and P&C metrics.
• Collaborate with P&C colleagues across SmartBear’s global offices, including Galway, Ireland; Bath, UK; Wrocław, Poland; and Bangalore, India, to align processes and deliver a consistent employee experience worldwide.

We Are Looking for You If You Have

• 3–5+ years of experience in an HR Coordinator, HR Generalist, People Operations, or similar People & Culture role, with proven experience supporting a global or distributed workforce and a strong focus on employee-facing responsibilities.
• A strong understanding of HR compliance principles, benefits administration, leaves of absence, and employee relations fundamentals, with the ability to research and apply local employment requirements in partnership with internal and external experts.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to build trust with employees, managers, vendors, and cross-functional partners.
• A self-starter mindset, with the confidence to identify gaps, propose improvements, and independently drive projects forward across a global, distributed team.
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and time management, with the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including advanced Excel capability and proficiency with Microsoft Office applications.
• Experience with HRIS and payroll systems such as BambooHR and ADP is preferred.
• Comfort working as part of a global P&C team, with occasional flexibility to overlap with colleagues across Europe and India.
• An AI-savvy mindset, with genuine curiosity about how AI and emerging technology can streamline P&C operations, reporting, and the day-to-day employee experience.

Location

Hybrid — Somerville, Massachusetts, US

This role is based out of SmartBear’s Somerville headquarters and requires candidates to be local to, and within commutable distance of, Somerville. As part of a global People & Culture team, occasional flexibility to overlap with colleagues across Europe and India will be required.

Why you should join the SmartBear crew:

• You can grow your career at every level.
• We invest in your success as well as the spaces where our teams come together to work, collaborate, and have fun.
• We love celebrating our SmartBear; we even encourage our crew to take their birthdays off.
• We are guided by a People and Culture organization - an important distinction for us. We think about our team holistically – the whole person.
• We celebrate our differences in experiences, viewpoints, and identities because we know it leads to better outcomes.

Did you know:

• Our main goal at SmartBear is to make our technology-driven world a better place.
• SmartBear is committed to ethical corporate practices and social responsibility, promoting good in all the communities we serve.
• SmartBear is headquartered in Somerville, MA with offices across the world including Galway Ireland, Bath, UK, Wroclaw, Poland, Ahmedabad and Bangalore India.
• We’ve won major industry (product and company) awards including B2B Innovators Award, Content Marketing Association, IntellyX Digital Innovator and Built-in Best Places to Work.

SmartBearis committed to creating an inclusive workplace for employees where all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. We are an equal opportunity employer and make employment decisions based on merit, qualifications, and business needs. We do not discriminateon the basis ofrace, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, gender, disability,veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other protected status under applicable laws. We are dedicated to fostering a workplace that reflects a diversity of thought and experience as well as our values of being smart, open, driven, accountable, and curious.

#LI-AS1

At SmartBear, we believe transparency in pay is part of how we build trust—with our employees, candidates, and community. Our compensation philosophy is grounded in market competitiveness, internal equity, and rewarding impact.

We encourage candidates to view compensation as part of their total rewards experience at SmartBear. This includes performance-based bonuses for eligible roles, a generous benefits package that supports employees’ health and well-being, and promotes work-life balance through flexible time off and hybrid work options. You can build your career at SmartBear through professional development opportunities, and an inclusive, collaborative culture where everyone can thrive.

Your SmartBear total rewards compensation package includes base salary and may also include a performance bonus plan. The base salary range for this role is listed below . Actual compensation is determined based on several factors, including relevant experience, skills, internal equity, and geographic location.

Estimated Base Salary Range

$94,500 - $110,000 USD

In connection with recruitment and interviewing, SmartBear may use technology-enabled tools, including tools that leverage artificial intelligence or machine learning, to assist with interview facilitation, note-taking, evaluation support, or skills-related insights. Participation in the use of such tools is voluntary and subject to applicable notice and consent requirements, where required by applicable law.

SmartBear does not use such tools to make automated employment decisions, and any outputs, scores, summaries, or insights generated by these tools are used solely as decision-support information and are reviewed by human decision-makers as part of a broader evaluation process. While the initial screening process of finding suitable Candidates may be automatic, any employment decision will be made by our team.