People Operations Manager (US)

ABOUT FONIO We grew from $1M to $10M ARR in under 12 months and now serve 10,000+ customers. Fonio is Europe’s market leader for AI phone agents for SMBs. Now we’re expanding globally and into new products. We move fast, take ownership, give direct feedback, and avoid politics and unnecessary meetings. Join one of world's fastest-growing companies. YOUR ROLE You own everything after a candidate signs, from contracts through offboarding, and automate as much of it as possible. We are looking for someone to build the structural backbone to enable rapid scaling. - Contracts & onboarding: Manage employment contracts for all employees (direct and indirect employment), organize equipment, accounts, workspaces, and support relocation of international colleagues. - HR tooling & automation: introduce and own an HRIS tool, automate workflows across systems. - Payroll: Organize and own internal payroll processes, including variable compensation calculation of all sales teams. - Compliance & people legal: Support international hiring, time-tracking, collective agreements, international taxation topics, etc. - Compensation: Manage and monitor compensation bands across teams/countries. - Events & culture: Organize internal and external events (hackathons, off-sites, etc.) - Offboarding: Manage offboarding of employees. - Later, people development: Design feedback cycles, L&D, career development (e.g. SDR academy). WHAT TO EXPECT - Solo, end-to-end ownership of everything people operations. - Hands-on operational work to build the foundation for automation/scaling. - Direct impact: your work has immediate influence on the culture of fonio. - Flat hierarchies: close collaboration across departments. WHAT YOU BRING - 3+ year of People Ops, HR, or Operations experience, ideally startup or scale-up. - Knowledge about US labor law, payroll, and collective agreements - Structured, hands-on working style. - AI and automation/workflow skills. - People-first, low ego. You thrive under intensity. - Strong English skills. WHAT WE OFFER - $70,000–$150,000 salary depending on experience + Equity - Hardware of your choice - Regular team offsites - Paid relocation to Vienna for approximately two months - Work from our New York office with an ambitious team HIRING PROCESS 1. 20 min intro call 2. 30 min skill interview 3. 20 min culture call