UnitX is hiring a People Operations Lead

Job Title: People Operations Lead About Us: UnitX builds the world's leading physical AI systems to automate repetitive visual tasks in factories. UnitX is a fast-moving startup with a team from Stanford, MIT, Google, and beyond. Since inception, UnitX has deployed 1,000+ mission-critical systems across 190+ of the world's leading manufacturers' production lines. Every year, $15B worth of products go through UnitX's AI inspection system to ensure quality. Join us to take ownership of a people foundation already in motion, and scale it alongside a company that moves fast and builds for the real world. Role Overview: As UnitX's first People Operations Lead, you will take ownership of the HR function and scale it as we grow. You will partner directly with the Co-Founder & CEO and Head of Talent to shape how UnitX is organized, how we level and pay our people, and how we keep a fast-growing global team engaged and aligned as we scale. This is a one-person team role in North America, and the work spans three areas: long-term org and comp planning, team values and engagement, and the operational backbone that keeps the company running. What You'll Do: Long-term planning • Partner with the CEO and Head of Talent on org structure design as the company scales, including reporting lines, span of control, and how new functions are stood up. • Own and evolve our global leveling and compensation framework, creating consistency and clarity across geographies and ensuring leveling decisions hold up over time. • Build the infrastructure for performance review cycles and help managers deliver consistent, high-quality feedback. Team values, engagement, and culture • Run engagement surveys and go deep on the results, surfacing the patterns and root causes leadership needs to act on, not just the headline scores. • Build the middle manager layer: identify who needs support, create the enablement and feedback loops that level them up, and partner with leadership to push the bar on management quality. • Get ahead of politics and personnel issues before they compound. You'll be the person leaders trust to flag what's actually happening on the ground and to resolve it cleanly. • Foster belonging across a global, distributed team. You'll design and execute the rituals, communications, and programs (offsites, leadership summits, all-hands, team events) that make UnitX feel like one team. Operations • Own the HR ops backbone: payroll coordination, benefits administration, compliance, leave management, and immigration support for North America. • Run onboarding and offboarding end to end. • Run the weekly global leadership meeting, owning the agenda, tracking OKRs and action items, and driving accountability across the leadership team. • Coordinate with regional HR leaders across our global offices to unify policy and playbook. • Flex into recruiting support as hiring accelerates, partnering with the Head of Talent on sourcing, coordination, and execution. Who You Are: • You are a builder, not a maintainer. As UnitX's first dedicated HR hire in North America, you're energized by the blank page and excited to leave your fingerprints on a company that moves fast. • You are comfortable being a one-person team. You know how to prioritize, run lean, and own the full surface area of People Ops without a team behind you. • 5+ years of hands-on HR or People Operations experience as a senior individual contributor. You've owned a function before, not just supported one. • You've built or meaningfully evolved a leveling and compensation framework, and you have a point of view on how comp philosophy should track with company stage. • You've designed and run engagement surveys and translated the data into action that leadership actually executes on. • You've coached or enabled middle managers and can speak to specific cases where you moved the quality of management at a company. • Recruiting or talent acquisition experience. You've sourced, coordinated, or partnered closely with recruiting teams and can flex in to support hiring when needed. • Comfortable coordinating HR across global, distributed teams with different regional requirements. • Operationally sharp. You like owning systems, closing loops, tracking action items, and keeping leaders organized and accountable. • Strong event planning and logistics coordination skills. You can run an offsite without dropping a detail. • Experience supporting immigration and visa processes for a global workforce. • Bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese is a plus but not required. Helpful for partnering with our APAC team. Benefits: • Competitive salary & equity • Unlimited PTO • Full Medical, Dental, Vision, 401k • Daily meals provided with your own choice