Founding People HR & Operations Manager – Consumer AI Startup

Founding People HR & Operations Manager – Consumer AI Startup

Company: Airawath

Location: Hyderabad, India – Onsite / Hybrid

Experience: 7–10 years preferred

Employment Type: Full-time

Function: People Operations, Talent, HR, Startup Operations

About Airawath

Airawath is an early-stage consumer AI startup building a platform around gifting, e-invitations, celebrations, meaningful relationships, social connection, and future B2B/B2B2C workflows.

We are building a highly technical, AI-first product company with teams across India and the US. We are looking for a strong People & Operations leader who can help build the India organization from the ground up.

This is not a routine HR role. This is a founding operations role for someone who has built teams, systems, culture, and execution discipline in fast-moving startup environments.

Who We Are Looking For

We are looking for a highly capable, execution-driven People & Operations Manager who can own hiring, people operations, HR systems, team accountability, onboarding, internal processes, and day-to-day operational discipline.

The ideal candidate has worked in successful consumer tech, SaaS, fintech, e-commerce, marketplace, or high-growth startup environments and understands how to build exceptional teams with speed, quality, and structure.

Preferred background includes experience from top institutions such as IIM, ISB, XLRI, TISS, or strong equivalent startup/operator experience. Institution is a plus, but real execution and team-building ability matter most.

Key Responsibilities

Build and manage Airawath's India people operations, HR processes, and internal operating systems from the ground up.

Own end-to-end hiring coordination for technical, product, marketing, design, operations, and leadership roles.

Work closely with the founder and leadership team to define hiring priorities, role requirements, interview processes, and evaluation standards.

Create structured hiring pipelines to identify top-tier talent from startup, consumer tech, AI, product, engineering, and marketing backgrounds.

Build onboarding systems that help new hires become productive quickly and clearly understand Airawath's expectations, culture, and operating rhythm.

Establish HR policies, employee documentation, offer letters, contracts, NDAs, confidentiality processes, and internal compliance workflows.

Track employee performance, productivity, accountability, work discipline, timesheets, availability, and delivery follow-through.

Create operating cadences for the team, including updates, reviews, reporting, follow-ups, ownership tracking, and escalation mechanisms.

Support payroll coordination, vendor coordination, basic finance/admin workflows, and internal operational documentation.

Help build a high-performance startup culture based on ownership, speed, quality, accountability, and transparency.

Identify operational gaps and proactively create systems, processes, and tools to fix them.

Work across India and US time zones when required, especially for hiring, leadership coordination, and operational follow-ups.

Use AI tools and automation platforms to improve hiring workflows, documentation, reporting, team coordination, and internal processes.

Must-Have Qualifications

7–10 years of experience in HR, People Operations, Talent, Startup Operations, or Founder's Office-style execution roles.

Prior experience building or scaling teams in a startup, consumer tech, SaaS, fintech, e-commerce, or product company.

Strong hiring and talent assessment ability, especially for technical and high-performance startup roles.

Ability to operate independently with minimal supervision.

Strong communication skills, professional judgment, and high confidentiality.

Strong process orientation with the ability to create structure in ambiguity.

Comfortable working in a fast-paced startup environment with changing priorities.

Strong ownership mindset and ability to follow through until completion.

Ability to work with founders, technical teams, marketing teams, vendors, and external partners.

Comfortable using modern AI tools, productivity tools, ATS/HR tools, spreadsheets, documentation systems, and workflow automation tools.

Strong Plus

Experience at a successful consumer tech, AI, SaaS, marketplace, fintech, e-commerce, or high-growth startup.

Experience hiring engineers, product managers, designers, AI talent, digital marketers, and leadership roles.

Experience setting up HR operations from scratch in a small but fast-scaling team.

Exposure to Founder's Office, business operations, or cross-functional startup execution.

MBA or equivalent education from IIM, ISB, XLRI, TISS, or other strong institutions.

What Success Looks Like

In the first 90 days, you should be able to:

Build a structured hiring pipeline for critical roles.

Improve candidate screening quality and reduce founder time spent on irrelevant applicants.

Set up onboarding, documentation, HR workflows, and accountability systems.

Create clear team operating rhythms and reporting mechanisms.

Help Airawath move from founder-managed operations to system-managed operations.

Compensation

Compensation will be based on experience and demonstrated capability.