Principal People Business Partner

SandboxAQ is a high-growth company delivering AI solutions that address some of the world's greatest challenges. The company’s Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) power advances in life sciences, financial services, navigation, cybersecurity, and other sectors.

We are a global team that is tech-focused and includes experts in AI, chemistry, cybersecurity, physics, mathematics, medicine, engineering, and other specialties. The company emerged from Alphabet Inc. as an independent, growth capital-backed company in 2022, funded by leading investors and supported by a braintrust of industry leaders.

At SandboxAQ, we’ve cultivated an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, and impact. By investing deeply in our people, we’re building a thriving, global workforce poised to tackle the world's epic challenges. Join us to advance your career in pursuit of an inspiring mission, in a community of like-minded people who value entrepreneurialism, ownership, and transformative impact.

At SandboxAQ, we operate distinct product teams pursuing different AI technologies. This means our work crosses multiple, highly specialized technical frontiers. Our people strategy—who we hire and how we empower them—is a critical factor in whether we succeed.

We are looking for a Principal level People Partner who acts as a "Swiss Army Knife" organizational development expert and executive consultant. In this role, you will work across all business units and collaborate closely with partner functions like Finance, Information Security, Business Operations, and Marketing to drive company-wide objectives.

This unique role requires you to constantly zoom in and zoom out. One day you will partner with a business leader to architect a top-down people strategy that aligns with their 3-year product and commercial vision; the next, you will roll up your sleeves to handle a structural reorg or build a localized solution for an acute team issue.

You will not be running standard HR programs from an ivory tower. We have a centralized People Operations team that builds our core company-wide programs (like talent reviews and performance management) to provide a solid baseline foundation. Your job is to use that foundation as a springboard to design highly customized solutions for each business unit—ranging from structural redesigns and workflow overhauls to leadership alignment or custom training. Your insights will be critical to informing the content and priorities for company-wide programs and initiatives that help the company prepare for the future.

• Strategic Business Consultation: Partner with business leaders to evaluate whether their current team setup supports their product and commercial vision. You will be accountable for ensuring there is a standardized, actionable "People Plan" for each business unit.

• High-Velocity Cross-Functional Design: Act as the internal expert on change management and organizational design. You will help design structures and frameworks that protect the agility of individual business units while keeping centralized infrastructure and technical breakthroughs highly accessible.

• Bridging Cultural Paradigms: Actively diagnose and manage organizational friction points and help leaders optimize team dynamics and understand polarities such as speed vs. quality, short-term revenue attainment vs. long-term competitive advantage, services vs. product.

• Bespoke Talent & Retention Strategy: Translate baseline talent data into localized action plans. Partner with our Head of People Operations & Programs and Total Rewards Manager to design retention strategies that keep our employees insulated from poaching by frontier AI labs.

• Ruthless Prioritization & Execution: You cannot do everything. You will diagnose the highest leverage opportunities for each business unit, and prioritize and help execute the exact point solutions that move the needle on business outcomes.

• Future Leadership: While you will operate as a high-impact individual contributor today, as the company grows you will architect our future People Partner model and eventually hire, mentor, and lead a team.

• Experience: 10+ years of progressive experience in People Partnering / HRBP roles, organizational development, or management consulting, with at least 2–3 years at a Director or Principal level.

• Domain Expertise: Proven track record in organizational design (ideally in deeply technical, nimble environments), change management methodologies, and designing scaled organizations.

• Environment: Deep experience working in high-growth AI, deep-tech, biotech, or highly complex R&D environments. Experience managing the unique dynamics of commercializing highly scientific research is a massive plus.

• Execution Track Record: Demonstrable experience building high-impact frameworks, operational plans, and accountability structures from scratch in an ambiguous, mid-sized company environment (~200-500 employees).

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Organizational Development, HR, or a related field; Master’s/MBA/PhD is a plus but real-world business outcomes matter more to us than credentials.
  

• A Strategic "Do-er": You possess world-class consulting skills, but you are fueled by execution, not just theory. You get energized by getting your hands dirty, driving projects to the finish line, and seeing your direct impact on the business.

• Business-First Mindset: You speak the language of product roadmaps and commercial results, not just HR frameworks. You view People strategy strictly as a mechanism to help the business achieve its mission.

• Intellectually Agile: You are fascinated by complex, deep-tech and scientific environments. You want to be on the forefront of the artificial intelligence revolution and possess the curiosity to really understand what our teams are building.

• Style-Agnostic Influencer: Because you will work across multiple distinct leadership teams, you seamlessly adapt your approach to the leader and organizational need in front of you. Whether you act as a data-driven consultant, an executive coach, or a challenger, you use your influence to help leaders look ahead, build the courage to tackle tough issues themselves, and make better decisions faster.

• Master of Ambiguity: You thrive when there is no playbook. You can zoom out to see macro trends and zoom in to fix a broken process or coach a leader through their challenges.

• Pragmatic and Non-Traditional: You lean into unconventional talent solutions over rigid checkboxes. You look at team building as a puzzle and understand that we cannot always scale linearly. You will help leaders design specific role profiles for unique talent personas who can comfortably take on scope far beyond a traditional job description.

We offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your health, financial well-being, and life outside of work.

• Compensation: Competitive base salary, performance-based incentives or bonuses (where applicable), and equity participation.

• Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents with generous employer premium contributions, retirement savings with company matching, paid parental leave, and inclusive family-building benefits.

• Work-Life Balance: Flexible paid time off, company-wide seasonal breaks, and support for flexible work arrangements that enable sustainable performance.

• Career Development: Opportunities for continuous learning and growth through on-the-job development, cross-functional collaboration, and access to internal learning and development programs.

We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging and respect, where diverse perspectives are actively sought and valued. Our multidisciplinary environment provides ample opportunity for continuous growth - working alongside humble, empowered, and ambitious colleagues ready to tackle epic challenges.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status.

Accommodations: We provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities in job application procedures for open roles. If you need such an accommodation, please let a member of our Recruiting team know.

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