Director of People

About Parkade

Parkade is modernizing private parking. We’re creating a world with far less parking — but one where every parking spot is available at the push of a button, and priced, managed and enforced properly.

We are looking for a hands-on Sr. Manager, People or Director of People (title may vary depending on your experience) to help us scale from our current 40-person team to 100 beyond, while keeping Parkade an amazing place to work with high-performing employees. While we leverage a PEO, you’ll be the sole internal owner of HR and recruiting — and you will be the architect of the systems, operations, culture and processes that allow us to nurture our current team and grow Parkade into 100s of employees.

We imagine this role will generally be a 50-50 split of recruiting and HR needs from you.

This critical role requires a rare blend of big-company expertise and startup sensibility. We need someone who can thoughtfully adapt enterprise-level policies to our agile, entrepreneurial environment while preserving what makes our culture special.

We need a thoughtful leader who brings the structure, compliance, and best practices of a large organization, yet respects the innovation, speed, and informality that define our startup roots.

Key Responsibilities

Policy Management

• Design, refine, and communicate HR policies tailored to our team, ensuring they align with industry standards, compliance requirements, labor laws, and best practices

• Develop and implement a comprehensive compensation philosophy and policies that balance market competitiveness with internal equity

• Further develop and strengthen our performance management framework to drive accountability while staying aligned with our team’s size, culture, and values.

• Advocate for, get buy in and implement a comprehensive benefits program tailored for Parkade’s growing team

Performance & Change Management

• Create a culture of accountability where performance standards are clear, feedback flows regularly, and the bar is held high

• Develop and facilitate training programs that build managers; capability to deliver constructive, direct feedback

• Coach managers on difficult conversations and performance improvement plans when necessary

• Navigate the delicate balance between startup autonomy and corporate requirements

• Address cultural friction points proactively, including resistance to new processes or loss of ‘startup identity’

• Build trust across the organization as the face of HR, people, talent, and culture

• Preserve and build upon high-performing cultural elements while introducing necessary structure

Employee Relations & Compliance

• Investigate and resolve employee relations issues with fairness, confidentiality, and sound judgment

• Ensure compliance with employment law, all workforce classifications, and ethical standards

• Manage accommodation requests, any and all leaves, workplace investigations, and disciplinary processes

Talent Management

• Partner with leadership on workforce planning, organizational design, and succession planning

• Lead full-cycle recruiting for critical hires, including personally sourcing and scheduling candidates when needed

• Review, refine, and elevate onboarding experiences

• Very comfortable using and configuring an ATS like Lever or Ashby, including as the ATS admin. You can configure interview plans, figure out why a hiring manager can't view their applications, etc.

HR Operations

• Own HRIS administration, payroll coordination, and benefits offering and enrollment

• Generate workforce analytics and insights to inform business decisions

• Manage the employee lifecycle from offer letter to offboarding

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive HR experience, including at least 3-4 years in a generalist and manager role

• Experience with a PEO (Professional Employer Organization) like Justworks

• Time spent overseeing HR/recruiting for a mixed hourly-and-salaried workforce

• Track record of effectively navigating the unique demands of start-ups and the structured frameworks of large organizations with developed HR infrastructure.

• Direct experience developing HR policies across a wide range of areas—including compensation and compliance—either by creating them from scratch or adapting enterprise-level policies for smaller, growing teams.

• Demonstrated success addressing cultural challenges, particularly around accountability and feedback cultures

• Bachelor's degree, ideally in Human Resources, Business, Psychology, or related field

Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience

• Experience leading top of the funnel recruiting and sourcing

• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR certification

Location

This is an in-person, on-site role based in one of our offices (San Francisco or Los Angeles/Long Beach)

Interview process

• Call: 45-60 mins with our Sr. Manager of Special Projects

• Call: 45 mins with our Head of Finance

• Call: 30 mins with our CEO

• On site (5 hrs)

  • 3:1 recruiting exercises

  • 2:1 HR exercises

  • 30 min culture interview

  • 15 min CTO/cofounder interview

  • 1 hour final CEO interview