Principal People Business Partner, SandboxAQ
$185-326k
Salary dependent on location.Plus equity.
AI & quantum computing solutions
Posted today
AI & quantum computing solutions
201-500 employees
Posted today
$185-326k
Salary dependent on location.Plus equity.
201-500 employees
Company mission
To help address some of the world's most challenging problems through AI and Quantum technology.
Role
Who you are
- Experience: 10+ years of progressive experience in People Partnering / HRBP roles, organizational development, or management consulting, with at least 2–3 years at a Director or Principal level
- Domain Expertise: Proven track record in organizational design (ideally in deeply technical, nimble environments), change management methodologies, and designing scaled organizations
- Environment: Deep experience working in high-growth AI, deep-tech, biotech, or highly complex R&D environments. Experience managing the unique dynamics of commercializing highly scientific research is a massive plus
- Execution Track Record: Demonstrable experience building high-impact frameworks, operational plans, and accountability structures from scratch in an ambiguous, mid-sized company environment (~200-500 employees)
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Organizational Development, HR, or a related field; Master’s/MBA/PhD is a plus but real-world business outcomes matter more to us than credentials
Desirable
- A Strategic "Do-er": You possess world-class consulting skills, but you are fueled by execution, not just theory. You get energized by getting your hands dirty, driving projects to the finish line, and seeing your direct impact on the business
- Business-First Mindset: You speak the language of product roadmaps and commercial results, not just HR frameworks. You view People strategy strictly as a mechanism to help the business achieve its mission
- Intellectually Agile: You are fascinated by complex, deep-tech and scientific environments. You want to be on the forefront of the artificial intelligence revolution and possess the curiosity to really understand what our teams are building
- Style-Agnostic Influencer: Because you will work across multiple distinct leadership teams, you seamlessly adapt your approach to the leader and organizational need in front of you. Whether you act as a data-driven consultant, an executive coach, or a challenger, you use your influence to help leaders look ahead, build the courage to tackle tough issues themselves, and make better decisions faster
- Master of Ambiguity: You thrive when there is no playbook. You can zoom out to see macro trends and zoom in to fix a broken process or coach a leader through their challenges
- Pragmatic and Non-Traditional: You lean into unconventional talent solutions over rigid checkboxes. You look at team building as a puzzle and understand that we cannot always scale linearly. You will help leaders design specific role profiles for unique talent personas who can comfortably take on scope far beyond a traditional job description
What the job involves
- At SandboxAQ, we operate distinct product teams pursuing different AI technologies
- This means our work crosses multiple, highly specialized technical frontiers
- Our people strategy—who we hire and how we empower them—is a critical factor in whether we succeed
- We are looking for a Principal level People Partner who acts as a "Swiss Army Knife" organizational development expert and executive consultant
- In this role, you will work across all business units and collaborate closely with partner functions like Finance, Information Security, Business Operations, and Marketing to drive company-wide objectives
- This unique role requires you to constantly zoom in and zoom out
- One day you will partner with a business leader to architect a top-down people strategy that aligns with their 3-year product and commercial vision; the next, you will roll up your sleeves to handle a structural reorg or build a localized solution for an acute team issue
- You will not be running standard HR programs from an ivory tower
- We have a centralized People Operations team that builds our core company-wide programs (like talent reviews and performance management) to provide a solid baseline foundation
- Your job is to use that foundation as a springboard to design highly customized solutions for each business unit—ranging from structural redesigns and workflow overhauls to leadership alignment or custom training
- Your insights will be critical to informing the content and priorities for company-wide programs and initiatives that help the company prepare for the future
- Strategic Business Consultation: Partner with business leaders to evaluate whether their current team setup supports their product and commercial vision. You will be accountable for ensuring there is a standardized, actionable "People Plan" for each business unit
- High-Velocity Cross-Functional Design: Act as the internal expert on change management and organizational design. You will help design structures and frameworks that protect the agility of individual business units while keeping centralized infrastructure and technical breakthroughs highly accessible
- Bridging Cultural Paradigms: Actively diagnose and manage organizational friction points and help leaders optimize team dynamics and understand polarities such as speed vs. quality, short-term revenue attainment vs. long-term competitive advantage, services vs. product
- Bespoke Talent & Retention Strategy: Translate baseline talent data into localized action plans. Partner with our Head of People Operations & Programs and Total Rewards Manager to design retention strategies that keep our employees insulated from poaching by frontier AI labs
- Ruthless Prioritization & Execution: You cannot do everything. You will diagnose the highest leverage opportunities for each business unit, and prioritize and help execute the exact point solutions that move the needle on business outcomes
- Future Leadership: While you will operate as a high-impact individual contributor today, as the company grows you will architect our future People Partner model and eventually hire, mentor, and lead a team
Our take
Spun out from Alphabet in 2022, SandboxAQ is a company providing AI and quantum computing solutions. Using cybersecurity modules that are in line with the "third quantum revolution", SandboxAQ can migrate enterprises to a higher level of security through the use of this cutting-edge technology.
The company's approach enables cross-pollination in a range of fields including physics, neuroscience, cryptography and more. Examples of its products are an end-to-end crypto-agile security suite, and quantum sensing solutions. Impressively, SandboxAQ has already partnered with Deloitte and Ernst & Young, as well as the US Air Force, to bring its quantum tech to the market.
Looking forward, SandboxAQ plans to build further relationships across the public sector, to help situate the company as one of the most "battle-tested" quantum providers on the market. The company has raised significant funds that will accelerate further product development, and in 2025 began partnering with the Department of War CIO to accelerate the discovery and inventory of cryptographic assets within the DoW's environment.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Jun 2026
$500m
GRANT
Jul 2025
$95m
LATE VC
Total funding: $1.6bn
Company benefits
- Stock options
- Unlimated vacation (PTO) and flexible work culture
- Company-wide winter and summer breaks to unwind
- Best-in-class health plans: Medical, dental and orthodontics, and vision
- Family planning and fertility benefits
- Military leave
- 100% paid parental leave
- 401k with company matching
- Education stipends
- Financial wellness resources
Company HQ
Palo Alto, CA
Leadership
Jack Hindary
(CEO)Serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder of several tech companies. Also the author of 'Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach', one of the leading textbooks used in the field.
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