Head of People

Equal1 is a fast-growing quantum computing company operating across Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania, the US, and Canada. We are looking for an experienced, hands-on HR leader to take ownership of the HR function and help us scale: building on processes already in place, partnering with external consultants, and creating a consistent employee experience across multiple jurisdictions.

As Head of People, you will shape the culture, leadership capability, and people experience of Equal1 as we scale a world-leading, high-growth deep tech company over the next 18 months.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

HR foundations & scaling

• Develop and continuously improve scalable HR foundations, including core processes, templates, and policies, appropriate for a high-growth technology company operating across multiple jurisdictions.

• Ensure HR compliance fundamentals are robust and audit-ready (right-to-work, data privacy/GDPR, mandatory training where applicable, employee relations processes, and required record keeping).

• Lead the evolution of compensation foundations, including salary bands/levelling, location-based benchmarking, internal equity, and annual review cycles.

• Establish a simple, high-signal people metrics cadence (hiring funnel health, time-to-hire, retention, onboarding completion, engagement indicators) to support leadership decision-making.

• Own HR systems and data governance, ensuring strong data quality, reporting, access controls, and compliant handling of employee data.

Employee lifecycle & manager support

• Partner closely with managers as a trusted advisor, equipping them to lead effectively through practical coaching on feedback, documentation, fair process, and clear communication.

• Implement and run a lightweight performance and development framework (goal setting, reviews, calibration, promotions), providing a practical manager toolkit to enable consistency and fairness.

• Own and continuously improve the end-to-end employee experience across the full lifecycle, from onboarding and probation through role/contract changes and offboarding, ensuring a consistent, high-quality and compliant approach across jurisdictions.

• Help shape and scale Equal1’s culture and ways of working across distributed teams, strengthening internal communications and reinforcing a high-performance, values-led environment.

Hiring operations & workforce planning

• Own and continuously improve the recruitment process as we scale the team, partnering with hiring managers and leveraging our external recruiting support to ensure a consistent, efficient end-to-end hiring experience.

• Partner with Finance and leadership on headcount planning, hiring budgets, approvals, and tracking.

• Maintain hiring governance: offer process, compensation alignment, approvals, contract issuance, and onboarding readiness.

• Coordinate work permits, relocations and cross-border hires with external providers; track renewals and compliance.

HR operations across multiple jurisdictions

• Own day-to-day HR operations across five jurisdictions, ensuring compliant and consistent practices while adapting to local requirements

• Coordinate with external legal/HR advisors on employment contracts, templates, policy updates, renewals, and contract reviews.

• Manage HR documentation and data integrity (contracts, amendments, policies, employee files)

• Manage contractor/EOR engagements (onboarding, renewals, offboarding) in partnership with Finance/Legal, ensuring correct classification and documentation

Payroll, benefits and vendor management

• Lead the set-up and ongoing management of benefits across jurisdictions

• Establish clear internal processes for changes (joiners/leavers, salary changes, allowances, bonus inputs) to ensure accurate payroll execution.

• Manage relationships with external providers for payroll and HR administration (including local payroll partners/EOR).

Experience and Qualifications

Required

• 5+ years of progressive HR / People Operations experience, ideally in a scaling tech or R&D environment.

• Experience working with Irish employment legislation and HR compliance requirements.

• Demonstrated experience managing HR across multiple countries/jurisdictions, with strong comfort coordinating external legal, payroll and benefits providers.

• Strong working knowledge of employment contracts and HR compliance fundamentals

• Experience partnering closely with Finance (budgets, headcount planning, approvals, compensation inputs).

• Excellent communication skills, sound judgement, and high discretion with confidential information.

• Highly organised, resourceful, and comfortable operating with ambiguity and minimal supervision.

Desired

• Experience building HR processes from “early stage” to “repeatable and scalable”.

• Experience supporting recruiting operations and vendor management (agencies, contractors, embedded recruiters).

• Experience working across additional jurisdictions we operate in (Netherlands, Romania, the US, and Canada) is a strong plus.