About the Role

Sofar Ocean builds the sensors and software that map and forecast ocean conditions, from our Spotter buoy network to Wayfinder voyage optimization and SpotCast. We're a lean, high-ownership team of about 100 people, which means the person behind our HR infrastructure has an outsized effect on how it feels to work here.

We're looking for a Senior People Operations Manager who can own that infrastructure end to end: build (some of) it, run it, and improve it without needing to be told what's broken. This is a highly autonomous role. You'll be trusted to identify gaps, prioritize what matters, and execute with minimal oversight. It also demands real attention to detail: payroll, compliance, and employee data don't tolerate sloppiness, and small errors here erode trust fast. And it requires a sense of urgency: when someone's leave, pay, or onboarding is on the line, "eventually" isn't good enough!

Every process you build touches a real person's experience of working at Sofar. This role is as much about protecting the culture and wellness of every Sofarer as it is about operational excellence.

Key Responsibilities

• HR Infrastructure & Technology: Own and optimize our HR systems (Rippling, Ashby, Slack, and related tools), ensuring data integrity, building automation where manual work creates friction, and producing People analytics leadership can actually use.

• Compliance & Risk Management: Maintain rigorous compliance with federal, California, and San Francisco labor law (FMLA/CFRA, SF HCSO, FLSA). Lead audit readiness, including SOC 2 or SOX documentation as needed.

• Total Rewards & Payroll: Partner with finance and external vendors on payroll processing, benefits administration, and open enrollment, catching discrepancies before they become problems.

• Employee Lifecycle & Operations: Run onboarding, internal mobility, leaves of absence, and off-boarding cleanly and consistently. Support the ongoing transition of our international team members to direct-hire employment as we stand up new entities abroad.

• Process Optimization: Continuously look for administrative friction and remove it. Draft clear SOPs and keep the employee handbook current, treating documentation as a way to make the People function more autonomous, not less.

Required Qualifications

• Experience: 6+ years of progressive HR experience, with at least 3 years focused specifically on People Operations, ideally in a fast-growing startup environment.

• Location: Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, able to be onsite at Pier 28 4 days/week.

• Technical Skills: Advanced administrator experience with modern HR platforms (Rippling, Ashby, Slack, or similar) and strong Excel/Google Sheets skills for data analysis.

• Legal Knowledge: Deep working knowledge of California employment law, wage-and-hour rules, and leave administration.

• Education/Certifications: Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, or a related field. SHRM-SCP or SPHR is a plus, not a requirement.

• What we need most: someone who takes ownership without hand-holding, sweats the details that others miss, moves with urgency, and genuinely cares about the day-to-day experience of the people around them.

What We Offer

• Competitive base salary ($130,000–$155,000) + equity

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance

• Learning and development stipend

• Flexible PTO, plus one company-wide office closure week

• Catered onsite lunches

• Flexible working hours (in some cases, lets chat!)