Jobs and Careers

Senior Manager, People & Organizational Effectiveness

San Diego, United Statesfull_timeVerifiedPosted 24 Jun 2026

💰 $185,000/yr($155,000/yr – $185,000/yr)

About the role

Firestorm is hiring a Senior Manager, People & Organizational Effectiveness individual to serve as the operational backbone of our people function. You will be in a high-autonomy, high-impact role and will thrive on solving problems quickly, building durable solutions, and operating at the intersection of HR operations, legal coordination, and management partnership.

This is not a traditional HR chain-of-command role. You will report directly to Legal, ensuring tight coordination on compliance and employment matters, with an HR Coordinator reporting to you to support day-to-day execution. You will work in close partnership with the CEO, CFO, and business unit heads, serving as their primary people-operations point of contact across employee relations, workforce planning, and organizational issues within their divisions.

We are looking for someone who can move fast, navigate ambiguity, work directly with executives and legal counsel, and defuse complex employee situations—all while building the governance infrastructure that prevents recurring issues. You are a business partner first and an HR operator second.

Your work falls into two core pillars:

Immediate Issue Response — assisting HR, managers, leadership, and legal counsel with employee relations matters, compensation questions, recruiting issues, contractor questions, investigations, documentation concerns, and other issues as they arise.

Structural Mitigation — identifying the policy, governance mechanism, process, form, leadership expectation, or organizational practice that would prevent the same issue from recurring.

If you want to help build an organization capable of scaling at a high level without losing speed or sense of mission, and you are energized by solving real problems rather than designing theoretical frameworks, this role is for you.

What You’ll Do

Immediate Issue Response & Employee Relations

Serve as the operational liaison between HR, outside employment counsel, the full leadership team, and employees on sensitive matters—coordinating communications, advising on next steps, and translating legal guidance into practical management actions
Act as the dedicated people-operations partner to the C-suite and business unit heads—understanding each division's workforce needs, escalation patterns, and operational rhythm well enough to anticipate issues rather than just respond to them
Respond rapidly to employee relations matters, investigations, complaints, and workplace concerns with sound judgment and legal defensibility
Prevent unnecessary escalation while maintaining consistency and defensibility across all employee actions
Advise managers and HR on preparing for and conducting difficult conversations, including drafting manager communications
Coordinate with outside employment counsel on active matters, leveraging your position within Legal to ensure leadership receives clear, actionable guidance without delay
Support investigations end-to-end: intake, documentation, witness interviews, findings, and recommended actions
Advise on responses to individual compensation concerns, helping frame conversations and reinforcing that compensation decisions must be explainable and defensible
Address contractor classification questions, workforce design issues, agency workers, independent contractors, and visa-sponsored employee matters
Manage cross-border employment considerations and H-1B coordination as they arise

Structural Mitigation & Process Development

Identify recurring issues and build permanent process improvements—policies, forms, templates, workflows, and governance mechanisms—that reduce future risk
Develop compensation request forms, employee action forms, and approval processes that encourage written business justification and consistent decision-making
Draft and implement policies that create organizational consistency without unnecessary bureaucracy
Build governance guardrails for promotions, title changes, compensation actions, and organizational changes to reduce ad hoc decision-making
Advise on clearer requisition criteria, posting practices, and candidate evaluation standards to strengthen recruiting governance
Reconstruct and document historical commitments (compensation, sign-on bonuses, relocation) where records are incomplete
Develop documentation practices and direct the HR Coordinator on proper recordkeeping and administr