Key Highlights:

Position: Senior Manager, People
Location: Gurgaon, in-office
Experience Required: 7-10 years

About Airblack

Airblack is India's largest alternate skilling platform, helping people become microentrepreneurs and creators. Our mission is to help the next 100 million people in the workforce get access to meaningful opportunities.

We currently operate in sectors such as beauty, fashion, nutrition, digital & home businesses, impacting over 1M learners every month. Our flagship school in the beauty space is India's #1 Beauty Academy brand, with an alumni base of over 40,000 entrepreneurs in 300+ cities in India. Our apps consistently rank in the top 10 education apps in India with 5M+ users and 40M+ minutes of learning content being consumed every month.

Airblack has raised over $11 million from marquee investors such as Elevation Capital, Info Edge Ventures, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Blume Founders Fund and Better Capital, and leading angels such as Vidit (Meesho), Kunal (CRED), Deepinder (Zomato), Harshit & Shashank (Razorpay) and so on.

Who are we looking for

At Airblack, we genuinely believe that our people are our most important asset - not as a line in a deck, but as a lived principle that shapes how we hire, how we lead, and how we grow. Every product we ship, every learner we impact, every milestone we hit - it all starts with the team we build.

We are looking for an Associate Director, People who shares this belief deeply. Someone who sees the People function not as a support role, but as a core business driver. You will lead and scale our People function across a 200+ employee organisation, managing a team of your own and working as a trusted thought partner to our leadership. From the first conversation a candidate has with us to the moment an employee grows into a leader- you will own that entire experience and make it exceptional.

If you've built people practices that teams genuinely love, led a team that looks up to you, and thrive in environments where people and mission come first - we'd love to meet you.

What would you be doing

People Strategy & Culture: Be the custodian of Airblack's culture as we scale. Partner with leadership on org design, workforce planning, and building a workplace where people feel seen, valued, and set up to do their best work. Translate our values into everyday practices.
Talent Acquisition & Hiring;Own end-to-end hiring across functions, from senior leadership to frontline roles. Build pipelines, drive structured and bias-aware interview processes, and ensure every candidate- hired or not -walks away with a positive impression of Airblack. Own hiring quality metrics and keep raising the bar.
Performance & Growth: Design performance review cycles and OKR frameworks that are fair, transparent, and help people grow. Work closely with managers to build a culture of honest feedback, continuous development, and meaningful recognition.
Employee Experience & Engagement: Build programmes and rituals that make Airblack a place people are proud to be part of. Proactively track engagement signals, address attrition risks early, and champion employee wellbeing as a business priority.
People Operations & Compliance: Ensure seamless people operations - onboarding,offboarding, payroll coordination, HRIS management, and full statutory compliance. Build SOPs and scalable systems that bring structure without losing the human touch.

What makes you a suitable candidate

7-10 years of progressive HR experience, with at least 3 years leading a team of People/HR professionals
Proven experience supporting organisations of 300+ employees across the full employee lifecycle
Deep belief in people-first culture - you've built it, not just talked about it
Strong across the people spectrum-talent acquisition, HRBP, performance management, engagement, L&D, and operations
Empathetic communicator with the ability to build trust across all levels, from new joiners to founders
Data-informed in your approach - you use people metrics to make better decisions, not just to report numbers
Prior experience in a high-growth startup working directly with founders is strongly preferred

Why should you join Airblack

Skilling with a difference: We are one of the very few education companies in India that have been able to do all the following things together: deliver outcomes, stay lean, raise funds in a down market from top investors, have an infinite runway, and lead a completely new whitespace. Get the opportunity to be the face of a new era in the education & skilling sector in a high-skin-in-the-game leadership role
Experimentation & Build: We have a culture of rapid experimentation, freedom to fail & iterate, and owning scale-up through process building
People are the product here: At Airblack, the People function has a seat at the table - always. You won't be fighting for relevance or budget; you'll be shaping strategy alongside leadership in a company that has truly internalised that great teams build great companies.
Thriving Market Opportunity: We are building in a whitespace with massive opportunity & headstart - India has 15 million people entering the workforce every year and less than half a million jobs. Your impact will help create a dent in India's future
Work with a stellar team: Great missions require great people - and we are fortunate to have some of the smartest and nicest people supporting us in our journey. Our team comprises ex-entrepreneurs, VCs, and operators from places such as Goldman Sachs, Paytm, Oyo, Bain & Co., BCG, Urban Company, top IITs and so on

Senior Human Resources Manager