Senior Human Resources Generalist

Castelion; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance

Three weeks of paid time off

Long-term stock incentives

Job summary

A defense development company located in California is seeking a Senior Human Resources Generalist to optimize payroll operations and oversee benefits administration. The role involves managing compliance, analytics, and onboarding to create a robust HR infrastructure. Ideal candidates will have a bachelor's degree in HR or business, 3+ years of experience in HR, and familiarity with HRIS systems. The position offers comprehensive medical insurance and stock incentives.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of HR experience with strong ownership of payroll and benefits.
• Experience in a startup or high-growth environment.
• Solid understanding of employment laws and compliance requirements.

Responsibilities

• Deliver timely payroll processing and resolve discrepancies.
• Manage employee benefits programs and respond to inquiries.
• Maintain HRIS integrity and support compliance reporting.

Skills

Payroll and benefits management

HRIS proficiency

Analytical skills

Attention to detail

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, or related field

Tools

Rippling

ADP

Workday

Job description

Castelion is bringing a new approach to defense development and production: one that focuses on short, iterative design cycles, rapid testing in development, and modern commercial manufacturing strategies for production at scale. We’re designing, building, and testing next generation long range strike weapons systems to give America and its Allies a definitive edge and deter future conflicts.

Senior Human Resources Generalist

The Sr. Human Resources Generalist will lay a foundational role in building and optimizing the core people infrastructure that enables our teams to do their best work—on the ground and beyond.

You’ll design, implement, and continuously improve critical HR systems and processes across onboarding, payroll, benefits administration, and people analytics. Partnering closely with leadership and cross-functional teams, you’ll help create scalable, compliant, and employee-centric experiences that support rapid hiring and operational complexity.

Responsibilities

Payroll Operations

• Deliver 100% on-time payroll processing with little to no error rate.
• Serve as first point of contact for payroll tax inquiries, notices, and agency communications.
• Ensure timely and accurate payroll tax filings, reconciliations, and reporting across federal, state, and local jurisdictions, meeting all deadlines to avoid penalties.
• Resolve payroll discrepancies and inquiries within 24–48 hours.
• Ensure compliance with multi-state wage and hour laws, tax regulations, and reporting requirements.
• Continuously improve payroll processes to support rapid scaling through automation and system optimization.

Benefits Administration

• Manage and optimize employee benefits programs (e.g., retirement, leave management, health insurance) to increase employee participation and satisfaction.
• Respond to benefits inquiries within 24 hours with ≥95% resolution satisfaction.
• Support open enrollment and serve as a trusted resource for employee questions.
• Analyze utilization trends and recommend benefit enhancements.

People Analytics & HR Systems

• Maintain HRIS integrity and ensure accurate, real‑time employee data.
• Translate data into actionable insights for leadership and workforce planning.
• Support compliance reporting and audits with a high degree of accuracy.

Onboarding

• Ensure Day 1 readiness for all new hires (e.g., new hire documentation, new hire checklist, compliance requirements).
• Maintain ≥95% new hire satisfaction score on onboarding surveys.
• Track onboarding progress and identify opportunities to enhance efficiency and engagement.

General HR Operations

• Support onboarding and offboarding with a seamless, high‑quality experience.
• Respond to employee inquiries within 24 hours, with ≥90% first‑touch resolution rate.
• Maintain audit‑ready employee records with compliance‑free deficiencies.
• Ensure completion of offboarding tasks within company standards.
• Identify opportunities to automate, streamline, and strengthen HR processes.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, or related field
• 3+ years of HR experience with strong ownership of payroll and benefits
• Experience working in a startup or high‑growth environment
• Proficiency with HRIS platforms (e.g., Rippling, ADP, Workday, or similar)
• Strong analytical skills (excel required; dashboards/BI tools a plus)
• High attention to detail and ability to manage sensitive information
• Solid understanding of employment laws and compliance requirements

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Experience in aerospace, defense, manufacturing, or other regulated industries
• Familiarity with government compliance environments (e.g., audits, reporting standards)
• Experience building or scaling HR processes from the ground up
• HR certification (PHR, SHRM‑CP, or equivalent)
• Payroll certification (CPP or equivalent)

Leadership Qualities

Bias to Action and Creative Problem Solving

Desire and experience questioning assumptions in ways that lead to break through ideas that are ultimately implemented. Successfully bring in applicable processes/concepts/materials from other industries to achieve efficiency gains. Ability to personally resolve minor issues in development without requiring significant support.

High Commitment, High Initiative

A successful candidate will have a genuine passion for Castelion’s mission and consistently look for ways to contribute to the company’s technical goals and prevent hardware blockers. Ability to work in a fast paced, autonomously driven, and demanding atmosphere. Strong sense of accountability and integrity.

Clear Communicator

Proactively communicates blockers. Trusted in previous roles to be voice of company with regulators, suppliers, gate keepers and customers. Capable of tactfully managing relationships with stakeholders to achieve company‑desired outcomes without compromising relationships. Emails, IMs and verbal interactions are logical, drive clarity, and detailed enough to eliminate ambiguity.

All employees are granted long‑term stock incentives as part of their employment as Castelion. All employees receive access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance, and the company offers three weeks of paid time off per year.

Employment with Castelion is governed on the basis of competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

While this position does not currently require a U.S government‑issued security clearance, it may in the near future. Therefore, the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government–issued security clearance is required. U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance.