People Operations & Technology Architect

This role has four distinct areas. Each has a different mode — some are direct ownership and build, some are co-ownership and continuous improvement, some are working alongside peers to raise the technical bar. The common thread is that you are building an intelligent function, not running an operational one.

People Services — Know it well enough to make it smarter

The day-to-day operation of People Services sits with the team. You are not an additional pair of hands in that layer. What we need is someone who understands these workflows deeply enough to redesign, automate, and globally align them — and who stays close enough to the systems to spot patterns, failures, and improvement opportunities before they become problems.

The query management system — implement it and ensure it keeps evolving. This means SLA governance, ticket tiering and routing logic, escalation workflows, employee feedback loops, and dashboards. Day-to-day queries are handled by the team; you help ensure the system runs smoothly underneath them and continuously improves

Map and understand the end-to-end employee lifecycle — offer acceptance through onboarding, role changes, performance cycles, and offboarding — as the substrate on which every system and workflow is built

Identify inefficiencies, duplication, and manual steps across People Services workflows; design and implement improvements in partnership with the team

Align People Services processes globally where possible — there is variation across geographies today; find the right level of standardisation and build the systems that make it stick

Bring structure and consistency to global policy governance — coordinating reviews, tracking versions, and ensuring changes land consistently across geographies. 

People Systems — Architecture & Integrations

OakNorth's People technology stack is actively being reviewed and rationalised. By the time you join, the foundational work will be underway. What we need is someone who brings outside-in thinking — who knows what good looks like in the market, stays current on how the landscape is evolving, and helps us make better decisions as a result.

Co-own & carry forward

The People tech stack — join an ongoing review, bring fresh perspective and market knowledge, and carry it forward as a living piece of work. This is not a one-off audit but a continuous function: evaluating tools, tracking renewals, identifying consolidation opportunities, and ensuring the stack stays fit for purpose as the organisation scales

API integrations between People systems — not just configuring tools within a single platform but connecting them to create new outcomes. Where integrations are unreliable, rebuild them properly

Data architecture standards, master data management, and access controls — the rules that govern how People data flows across systems

Technical governance framework for AI and automation — what can be built, how it is approved, how it is audited

Work with

The People Systems lead who manages the HRIS, ATS, and platform configuration day-to-day — provide architectural direction, review integration decisions, and set the standards they work within

IT and Cyber on integrations, data privacy, and AI governance — you drive the People perspective in these conversations and translate technical requirements into business cases

People Insights — Data Infrastructure & Analytics

The People Insights capability is being actively built. A People dashboard is already in development and early use cases are live. You are joining a function that is moving — and bringing the technical depth to make it faster, more robust, and more analytically sophisticated over time.

Own & build

Data quality and governance standards across all People platforms — the rules, checks, and validation layers that make the data trustworthy and the reporting credible

The analytical architecture that underpins dashboards, reporting, and workforce intelligence — data models, pipeline design, and schema decisions that scale as the organisation grows

Work with

The People Insights analyst who is actively building dashboards and analytical capability — provide technical direction on data infrastructure, challenge analytical approaches, and create space for them to develop

Senior stakeholders who consume People data — translate what is technically possible into what is commercially useful, and frame analytics to support decisions, rather than reports

AI & Automation — Extending an Existing Build

OakNorth already has a clear view of the AI and automation use cases it wants to build, and work is underway. The architecture is being designed, the priorities are identified, and governance is being mapped. What we need is someone who can take what is already moving and make it significantly better — more robust, more scalable, and more ambitious in scope. We expect you to have already built agentic AI workflows in production. Experience in a regulated environment is a strong advantage.

Own & build

Agentic workflows across People Operations — onboarding, offboarding, probation, payroll reporting, query resolution, and document generation. Join an existing build, bring architectural rigour, help prioritise the backlog, and extend the platform into more complex territory. Human gates are built in by design; your job is to make the automation reliable enough that the team trusts it

API connections between People systems to create multi-step automated workflows that eliminate manual handoffs — maintaining and improving what is already in place, and building what is not yet built

A responsible AI in People framework — bias, explainability, data ethics, and regulatory compliance. Particularly important in a regulated financial services environment, where governance is a real constraint to navigate intelligently, not a blocker to work around

Navigate & unblock

IT and Cyber governance — build the business case and approval pathway for each use case, not just the technology. You will find this energising, not frustrating

Stay current on how the AI and automation landscape is evolving and help OakNorth make better decisions about what to build, what to buy, and what to wait on

Influence & Continuous Improvement

Set the technical direction and standards that the People function builds within — through expertise and delivery, not hierarchy or title

Raise the technical floor of the team — through how you work, what you share, and the bar you set — across systems thinking, automation, and AI literacy

Influence how People Services processes evolve as automation matures — your credibility comes from understanding the workflows and delivering results

Act as a thought partner to the Pillar Lead on strategy, architecture, and the AI roadmap

Shape, not inherit

You are joining a function that is already in motion. The decisions you make in year one — what gets prioritised, what gets built, what gets retired — will define what this function looks like for years.

Genuine ownership from day one

You are a thought partner to leadership, not an executor. The Pillar Lead is your direct manager and is invested in your success.

The AI agenda is real and backed

This is not a side project. OakNorth is deliberately building internal AI capability that compounds over time, within a governed framework.

Global scope from India

India is a genuine global hub. Your work has global impact from day one — not a local remit with international visibility added later.

Speed and visibility

OakNorth moves fast. What you build in year one will be visible, lasting, and yours.

An agenda that grows with you

The use cases in scope today are just the start. As the platform matures and the team's confidence in automation grows, the scope of what gets built expands with it. This role has a longer arc than most.