Senior People & Culture Business Partner

RapidSOS; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity options

Job summary

RapidSOS is looking for a Senior People & Culture Business Partner in New York City. You will work with BU leaders to shape teams, leadership capability, and organizational effectiveness, driving strategic people plans and practical solutions.

You will partner on workforce design, compensation decisions, and change management, while coaching leaders to build high-performing teams and fostering RapidSOS's culture and values. This hybrid role requires in-office presence 2–3 days/week.

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a People & Culture or HR Business Partner.
• Ability to translate business priorities into effective workforce, organizational, and people decisions.
• Credibility to influence and coach senior leaders with a developmental approach.
• Experience in organization design, workforce planning, compensation, performance, and change.
• Strong US employee relations expertise, including investigations and difficult matters.
• Comfort with AI, automation, and data-informed decision making.

Responsibilities

• Build trusted relationships with Business Unit leaders and understand strategies and priorities.
• Translate priorities into practical people and organizational plans and needs.
• Act as strategic advisor and constructive challenger for leadership decisions.
• Use workforce data to identify risks and improve organizational effectiveness.
• Translate EOS plans into workforce requirements and design organizational structures.
• Guide role scoping, job leveling, and headcount requests with Talent Acquisition.
• Advise on compensation decisions reflecting performance and market data.
• Coach leaders to build high-performing teams and embed leadership frameworks.
• Lead US employee relations and investigations, ensuring fair, timely handling.
• Partner across P&C, Finance, and Legal to align initiatives with business needs.

Skills

People & Culture

HR Business Partner

Leadership coaching

Organization design

Workforce planning

Data-driven decisions

AI fluency

US employment law

Education

SHRM-CP/SCP, PHR/SPHR or equivalent

Job description

Senior People & Culture Business Partner

New York, NY

In the time it takes you to read this job description, RapidSOS will have handled ~1,380 emergencies.

At RapidSOS, we are committed to using technology to build a safer, stronger future and working together to save lives. We’re in an exciting phase of growth, welcoming new members from across the globe to our mission-driven, ambitious, and inclusive team. Our work is founded on our values of trust and safety, pioneering, urgency, and purpose over pride, all of which support a company culture where people can innovate, collaborate, grow, and, above all, make an impact.

RapidSOS is the leading public safety AI company that unlocks mission-critical intelligence for emergency response. It harnesses artificial and human intelligence to fuse life-saving data from the world's largest safety network, which includes over 700M+ connected devices and 200+ global technology companies. This intelligence is delivered to 23,000+ federal, state, and local agencies, serving one million first responders. RapidSOS has supported over one billion emergencies in 16 countries, powering RapidSOS HARMONY, the first purpose-built AI for public safety, designed to save critical time by automatically detecting emergencies, unifying real-time data and video streams, and coordinating a faster, more effective response. Learn more at www.RapidSOS.com .

What this role is about

As our Senior People & Culture Business Partner, you will work closely with the leaders of our Business Units to build the teams, leadership capability, and organizational effectiveness needed to achieve their business goals.

This is a strategic, hands-on role requiring a deep understanding of the business, its priorities, and challenges. You will be a trusted advisor and constructive challenger, using your business understanding, people expertise, and sound judgment to influence decisions about how we organize, lead, develop, and support our people.

A key measure of success will be the capability of the leaders you support. You will help leaders confidently own their people responsibilities, make thoughtful decisions, and build high-performing teams through practical advice, coaching, and strong People & Culture frameworks.

The role reports to the VP, People & Culture and works closely with Talent Acquisition, People Operations & Total Rewards, Organizational Capability, Finance, and Legal. As RapidSOS becomes increasingly AI-native, you will also help rethink how we work, using AI and technology to simplify routine activities and create more capacity for meaningful business partnership.

What you will do

Strategic Business Partnership

• Build trusted relationships with Business Unit leaders, developing a deep understanding of their strategies, business performance, priorities, and challenges.
• Translate business priorities into practical people and organizational plans, proactively identifying workforce, leadership, and capability needs.
• Act as a strategic advisor and constructive challenger, helping leaders navigate complex decisions and take accountability for outcomes.
• Use workforce data and business insights to identify risks, challenge assumptions, and recommend improvements to organizational effectiveness.

Organization Design & Workforce Planning

• Translate EOS business plans and priorities into workforce and organizational requirements, identifying the talent, capabilities, and structures needed to deliver them.
• Partner with leaders on workforce planning and organization design, including future capacity, critical roles, capability gaps, accountabilities, decision rights, and spans of control.
• Guide role scoping, job leveling, job descriptions, and headcount requests in partnership with Talent Acquisition and People Operations & Total Rewards.
• Advise on compensation decisions, including offers, promotions, pay adjustments, and reviews, ensuring recommendations reflect performance, market data, internal equity, and established Total Rewards frameworks.
• Guide leaders through organizational change, ensuring people impacts are understood and transitions are managed effectively.

Leadership, Performance & Talent

• Coach leaders to build high-performing teams, establish clear expectations, provide meaningful feedback, and confidently own their people responsibilities.
• Embed RapidSOS's Continuous Performance approach and support performance and talent processes, including calibration, succession planning, retention risks, and development priorities.
• Partner with Organizational Capability to embed RapidSOS's leadership frameworks and development programs across the Business Units, coaching leaders to apply them and identifying emerging capability needs.
• Partner with Business Unit leaders to strengthen RapidSOS's culture, embedding our values and expected leadership behaviors into everyday decisions and team practices.
• Help leaders understand engagement and cultural challenges, using feedback and insights to strengthen team effectiveness and the team member experience.

Employee Relations & Case Management

• Lead US employee relations and case management, including conduct, performance, attendance, accommodations, grievances, and separations, ensuring matters are managed fairly, consistently, and in a timely manner.
• Conduct and oversee workplace investigations, ensuring appropriate processes, objective findings, thorough documentation, and well-reasoned recommendations.
• Advise and coach leaders through complex employment matters and difficult people decisions, balancing business needs, team member experience, consistency, and risk while maintaining clear leadership accountability.
• Assess employment risks and determine appropriate escalation, partnering with Legal on matters involving significant risk, legal interpretation, or broader organizational implications.
• Identify recurring employee relations issues and address underlying leadership, organizational, or framework gaps.
• Bring the business perspective into the design and improvement of People & Culture frameworks, playbooks, programs, and workflows.
• Partner across People & Culture, Finance and Legal to ensure people initiatives and decisions are practical, consistent, and aligned with business needs.
• Use AI, automation, and self-service tools to improve the quality and efficiency of People & Culture work, maintaining human judgment in complex and sensitive matters.

What we are looking for

We are looking for an experienced People & Culture Business Partner who combines strong business understanding with people expertise, sound judgment, and the confidence to influence senior leaders.

You will bring:

• Significant experience as a People & Culture or HR Business Partner, ideally supporting senior leaders in a scaling or fast-changing organization.
• Strong business acumen and the ability to translate business priorities into effective workforce, organizational, and people decisions.
• The credibility to influence and constructively challenge senior leaders, with a coaching approach that builds leadership capability and accountability.
• Experience in organization design, workforce planning, compensation, performance, talent, and organizational change.
• Strong US employee relations expertise, including investigations, performance management, accommodations, and separations, with working knowledge of multi-state employment requirements.
• Sound judgment, independence, and the ability to balance business needs, team member experience, consistency, and risk.
• Strong communication skills and confidence using workforce data to inform decisions and recommendations.
• Adaptability, curiosity, and practical AI fluency, with the ability to work effectively in a changing environment.

Helpful, but not required:

• Experience in a scaling technology company or multi-Business Unit / matrix organization.
• Experience supporting restructures, integrations, or significant operating model change.
• SHRM-CP/SCP, PHR/SPHR, or equivalent professional certification.

Working arrangements: This is a hybrid role based in New York City, with an expectation of working from our NYC office 2-3 days per week. No regular travel is required.

What we offer

• The opportunity to contribute to a mission-driven company working to solve one of the world's most important public safety challenges.
• Competitive salary, benefits, and equity participation.
• A dynamic, collaborative, and flexible environment where you can make a meaningful impact alongside talented and committed colleagues.

Starting pay for a successful applicant will depend on a variety of job-related factors, which may include experience, relevant skills, training, education, location, business needs, or market demands. The salary range for this role is $160,000 - $170,000. This role will also be eligible to receive equity options.

#LI-Onsite / #LI-Hybrid

RapidSOS is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or Veteran status.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in RapidSOS's Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.