People Operations Manager

Condor Software; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity participation

Comprehensive benefits

401(k) match

Job summary

Condor Software is seeking a People Operations Manager to build the people function end to end. You will own payroll, benefits, compliance, and data integrity, reporting to the VP of Finance & Operations.

This is the first dedicated People hire and you will design onboarding, leveling, and culture from the ground up to support rapid growth. You will run the day-to-day experience for every employee, ensuring reliable operations, scalable systems, and an engaging work environment while partnering

Qualifications

• 5+ years in People Operations, HR, or Talent roles.
• Direct experience with multi-state employment compliance and CA employment law.
• Experience building leveling frameworks and compensation bands.
• Strong HRIS and systems fluency; Rippling preferred.
• Payroll and benefits administration experience.
• Daily use of AI to improve work processes.
• Experience handling sensitive employee relations matters.

Responsibilities

• Own Rippling as system of record, data integrity, automation, and integrations.
• Run payroll and benefits administration including open enrollment and renewals.
• Own employment compliance, multi-state registrations, I-9s, and required filings.
• Maintain people data and reporting.
• Own Notion workspace structure and standards.
• Use AI to automate manual work in the function.

Skills

5+ years P&O

Multi-state compliance

CA employment law

Leveling frameworks

Compensation bands

HRIS fluency

Rippling experience

Payroll & benefits

AI in work

Employee relations

Discretion

Tools

Rippling

Job description

ABOUT CONDOR

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are invested to discover and develop new therapies, yet the financial infrastructure behind that work has not kept pace. Clinical operations and finance live in disconnected worlds, forcing teams to make high-stakes decisions using fragmented tools and static data.

Condor exists to change that. We are a system of action, building the financial intelligence layer that will power the next era of clinical development. Condor connects clinical operations, vendor activity, and financial signals into a single, real-time intelligence layer, giving R&D and finance leaders true command over how their organizations operate.

Condor is pharma-native, AI-driven infrastructure built to scale industry standards we helped define with Big 4 partners. It powers prediction, control, and execution across the most complex R&D environments in the world.

WHY THIS MATTERS NOW

Condor has moved past proving the concept. Enterprise teams already trust Condor to run critical operations and finance. The work ahead is the hardest part: scaling something people depend on when the stakes are this high.

Condor is a high-growth company backed by top institutional partners like Felicis and 645 Ventures, growing rapidly with Top 200 biopharma companies. We are building foundational infrastructure for how new therapies reach patients, and we are building the internal systems
to match.

THE ROLE

Condor Software is seeking a People Operations Manager to build and run the people function end to end. This is our first dedicated People hire. How we onboard someone on day one, how we level and pay people, how we develop them, and how we decide what kind of company we are: all of it is open, and all of it is yours to design.

You will report to the VP of Finance & Operations, who owns executive and leadership team partnership. Your focus is the function itself and the day-to-day experience of everyone in the company.

You will also be the person people come to. Being close to the team, knowing how they are actually doing, and removing the friction that makes someone's week harder than it needs to be is a real part of this job, not a byproduct of it.

This is a builder role. Not a lot exists yet, which means you get to decide how a company scales its people function rather than inheriting someone else's version of it. You will have a leadership team that backs your judgment and moves quickly on it, and you will see the effect of what you build almost immediately.

It is also a real operating role. The recurring work has to run well, because people's pay, benefits, and careers depend on it. The best person for this job is energized by both: the blank page and the thing that runs reliably every month.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

People Operations & Systems

• Own Rippling as the system of record for the company, including data integrity, workflow automation, and integrations across the rest of our stack

• Run payroll and benefits administration, including open enrollment and renewals, broker relationships, 401(k), and COBRA

• Own employment compliance, including multi-state registrations, exempt and non-exempt classification, I-9s, required filings, the employee handbook, and leave administration

• Maintain people data and reporting, including headcount, attrition, and org views that tie to Finance's headcount plan and board materials

• Own the structure and standards of our internal Notion workspace so that company knowledge, policies, and process documentation live somewhere findable and current

• Use AI to take manual work out of the function wherever it makes sense, from drafting and documentation to onboarding workflows and answering common employee questions

Talent Lifecycle

• Design and run onboarding so that a new hire has a great first day and gets productive quickly

• Own offboarding end to end, including transition planning, systems and access deprovisioning, final pay, and exit interviews

• Own recruiting operations, including Ashby, interview process design, scorecards, offer letters, and candidate experience, working alongside our external recruiting partners

• Partner with hiring managers on role scoping, interview loop design, and closing candidates

Performance, Levels & Compensation

• Build out our leveling framework and career ladders, partnering with the VP of Finance & Operations and function leads on the design

• Build defensible salary bands using market data, and help shape our compensation philosophy alongside Finance

• Design and run performance review cycles, including calibration, manager enablement, and follow-through on outcomes

• Own the annual compensation review and promotion process

Manager Support & Employee Relations

• Coach and support managers on giving feedback, running performance conversations, and developing their teams

• Support managers through sensitive employee relations matters with discretion and sound judgment

• Bring a clear point of view and the judgment to push back when something does not look right

Culture & Employee Experience

• Define and steward what it actually means to work at Condor, in practice rather than on a poster

• Be a visible and approachable point of contact for the whole company, including for the questions people do not know who to ask

• Own the employee experience end to end and keep looking for the small things that would make working here better

• Build the rituals that hold a distributed, fast-moving team together, including onboarding traditions, recognition, and team gatherings

• Measure engagement on a regular cadence and act on what the data says

• Build our learning and development approach, including manager training, individual development planning, and how we invest in people's growth

FIRST YEAR PRIORITIES

What we would expect this person to have delivered twelve months in:

• The operational foundation running cleanly, with payroll, benefits, and compliance in good shape

• A leveling framework and compensation bands in place, applied consistently across the company

• A performance review cycle designed, run at least once, and improved based on what we learned

• Onboarding rebuilt into an experience new hires talk about, with a faster path to being productive

• Managers better equipped to manage, with a clear point of view from you on where the gaps still are

• Notion structured as a real internal knowledge base, with clear standards for where things live

• A team that knows who to go to, and a People function people actually want to engage with

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

Required

• 5 or more years in People Operations, HR, or a combined People and Talent role, including time at a growing startup

• Direct experience with multi-state employment compliance and the practical realities of California employment law

• Experience building or contributing to leveling frameworks and compensation bands, not just administering someone else's

• Strong HRIS and systems fluency, with hands-on Rippling experience strongly preferred, and a track record of choosing, implementing, or cleaning up people systems

• Comfort owning payroll and benefits administration

• Daily use of AI in your own work, with a real instinct for what should be automated and what should not

• Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward building the thing rather than waiting for a mandate

• Experience handling sensitive employee relations matters independently

• Sound judgment and complete discretion with sensitive information

Preferred

• Experience as the first People hire at a company, or an early member of a People team that was being built

• Experience supporting a company through a Series B or later financing, including people-related diligence

• A track record of building documentation systems that stay organized and current

• Experience in B2B SaaS, life sciences, or healthcare

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

• Builder mentality, energized by creating structure where there is none

• Operationally rigorous, and proud of work that runs reliably without anyone having to check

• Genuinely interested in people and in what makes a team work well together

• Direct and warm at the same time, able to deliver hard messages without damaging the relationship

• Self-directed and comfortable operating without a defined playbook

WHAT WE OFFER

• Competitive compensation and meaningful equity participation

• Comprehensive employee benefits, including 100% company-paid health, dental, vision, and life insurance

• 401(k) plan with a 3% company match that vests immediately

• Unlimited PTO

Condor is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status.