At Convergent Research, we identify scientific bottlenecks that, if eliminated, could unlock major advances in human health, climate change, biosecurity, and economic growth. We are interested in building platform technologies that are able to broadly accelerate entire fields of research by removing these bottlenecks.
Why have moonshot efforts to alleviate these bottlenecks remained unattempted?
We believe this is because of a critical gap in the institutional landscape. The hard technical problems tackled by these projects benefit from larger infrastructure budgets than early startups typically have access to, a more industrial-grade, professionalized division of labor than found in academic labs, and greater operational scale, focus, and speed than is enabled inside large organizations.
At Convergent Research, we incubate and launch Focused Research Organizations (FROs). FROs execute with the intensity of the world’s best deep-tech startups to build critical tools for science that academic labs can’t build and industry won’t.
The role
Convergent Research launched the first FROs a little over two years ago. Now, we have 11 entities and 100 employees. We don’t see ourselves stopping anytime soon - we’ll hit 250 people working across all of CR and the FROs by the end of 2026.
The Head of People will be charged with ensuring our ability to attract, retain, and support 250+ people. This role will be incredibly dynamic - you’ll support teams working on the toughest problems in Neuroscience, Climate Change, Biotech, AI and more. You’ll be in charge of building the HR infrastructure for a 250 person organization but supporting tens of founders each with their own unique cultures, strategies, and goals.
You Are (skills)
- Experienced at scaling HR. You’ve worked in HR at organizations over 250 employees - hopefully you’ve helped scale those organizations too.
- An acquirer of talent. You are a pro at putting systems in place for the recruitment and hiring processes to attract and retain top talent! Even better if you’ve hired for some unique roles (MEMS engineer? Physicist?) Bonus points if you can give feedback on executive recruitment.
- Excellent at communicating. Clear, concise, persuasive communicator.
- Team player. You will need to collaborate closely with the Convergent Research operations team, individual FROs and our funders, as well as manage lots of different relationships and stakeholders.
You Will (duties)
- Design our compensation strategies. Upon Googling, apparently this is actually called “total rewards.” You have experience setting salary guidance for large organizations and navigating significant amounts of nuance (e.g. locations, seniority, types of roles, executive discretion, long term incentives, etc.)
- Manage hiring. Develop and implement effective strategies for sourcing, interviewing, and selecting great candidates.
- Build a best in class HR & People function. Manage our HR team and ensure that we’re building for the future. Review and update our HR policies, practices, and procedures.
- Be a coach. Because we’re an incubator, some of your role is directly managing the HR of the organization - but a lot of it will be helping our CEOs build and run excellent organizations.
- Attend quarterly team meetings - Our team meets off-site for a week once every 3 months to set goals, collaborate, and participate in fun team-building activities!
In 6 months, you will have: (6 months goals)
- Complete ownership of our compensation strategies. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit with a unique structure, we have a responsibility to set “reasonable” compensation. This means deciding on a framework for top executives at FROs across a wide number of industries. Also helping those executives set salaries for all of their employees. We have an initial framework in place, we’ll be leaning on you to improve it.
- Lead hiring on 2-3 more roles at Convergent Research. We have an angle on how we hire, but you can take it to the next level.
- Built a deep relationship with our HR team. There’s already some pretty fabulous things going on at CR with HR, and we care deeply about the team’s success. You’ll work with them closely to build our even bigger and better organization and maximize their growth.
- Updated our performance management processes at CR. We currently do 360s twice a year and performance evaluations annually. This checks a box, but doesn’t unlock growth - can you help us improve it?
- Started coaching - In many ways, we’re 11 small companies. Over the next 6 months, things are going to come up. You’ll act as a coach and advisor to many of our leaders.
We Offer:
- An opportunity to change the world and work with some of the smartest and the most talented experts from different fields.
- Competitive salary: $180,000 - 230,000 a year (salary commensurate with experience)
- Excellent medical, dental, and vision insurance; parental leave.
- Generous time off + paid holidays.
- Wellness allowance for fitness and wellness activities.
- Support for remote work.
- Frequent opportunities to spend time with colleagues in person.
We aim to help fill a structural gap in today’s R&D system. We enable fundamental research that requires unusual levels of scale and coordination yet is not rapidly monetizable by industry. We’re bringing together top talent from academia, industry, and startups to build a new model for innovative R&D. As an incubator within the Schmidt Futures Network, we identify high-impact scientific or technical research and development opportunities, ultimately defining and launching these projects as Focused Research Organizations.
We are an Equal Employment Opportunity employer that proudly pursues and hires a diverse workforce. We do not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion or religious belief, ethnic or national origin, nationality, sex, gender, gender-identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local, state, or federal law or company policy. We strive for a healthy and safe workplace and strictly prohibit harassment of any kind.
