People Operations Specialist

People Operations Specialist ABOUT HAPPYROBOT HappyRobot is the infrastructure for enterprises to build and orchestrate AI workforces. Our AI workers don't just communicate - they make decisions, take action, and run operations autonomously across voice, email, and enterprise systems. Born in Y Combinator (S23) and backed by a16z and Base10 with over $60M raised, we power critical operations for global enterprises worldwide. Our platform is battle-tested in the most demanding environments - where AI has real consequences. We started in logistics, built our own voice stack, models, and orchestration layer from the ground up, and are now bringing that infrastructure to every enterprise that runs the real economy. Learn more about our vision in our manifesto. https://www.happyrobot.ai/blog/manifesto ABOUT THE ROLE As our People Operations Specialist, your mission is to own the operational complexity that keeps our people function running — coordinating our immigration program, managing the vendor relationships that underpin our US and international workforce, and executing the day-to-day HR operations that employees depend on. You'll be the second dedicated People Operations hire at HappyRobot, joining a small team that is building the people function from the ground up. That means real ownership from day one, no bureaucracy between you and meaningful work, and genuine room to grow as the team and company scale. You'll work closely with or People Operations Lead, and partner directly with our Head of People on the operational priorities that matter most. RESPONSIBILITIES - Own our immigration program. We have a high volume of active immigration cases and this is some of the most time-sensitive, employee-facing work on the team. You'll be the primary point of contact for employees navigating visa sponsorship, manage our relationship with outside immigration counsel, track all case milestones and deadlines, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. You'll also build the tracking systems and automations that make this program scalable. - Coordinate our US people operations through our PEO. We use a PEO for our US population, so you're not running payroll from scratch — but you are the owner of that relationship and of payroll administration. You'll be the go-to for employee questions on benefits, payroll, and coverage, manage exceptions and escalations, and make sure the PEO relationship is working as hard as it should for our team. - Support our international employees across multiple countries. We have employees in France, Spain, Switzerland, and beyond. You'll coordinate with our EOR partners and local counsel to make sure our international employees are well-supported — handling operational questions, managing onboarding and offboarding logistics, and flagging compliance considerations before they become problems. - Keep our HRIS clean and running. You'll own day-to-day operations, data integrity, and record management in Rippling — employee records, status changes, employment eligibility, payroll, and supporting broader HRIS workflows as we build them out. Clean data is the foundation everything else is built on. - Handle HR administration with care. Background checks via Checkr, I-9 compliance, onboarding logistics — the operational tasks that underpin the employee lifecycle. You take pride in these being done right, not just done. - Build automations that eliminate manual work. You're always looking for the process underneath the task. You'll partner with our People Operations lead to identify where manual steps are slowing things down and build smarter — using AI tools, Rippling workflows, and whatever gets the job done sustainably. MUST HAVE - 3–5 years in HR operations or people operations at a tech company or fast-scaling startup. You've owned real operational surface area — not just supported someone else's work — and you know what it feels like to be the person things depend on. - HRIS proficiency ( ... (truncated, view full listing at source)