Director of People Operations, Cohere
Natural language processing AI platform
Open for applications
Natural language processing AI platform
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To build machines that understand the world, and to make them safely accessible to all.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of management experience, preferably in a scale-up tech environment with 250+ employees
- Proven experience as an HR leader in a startup or high-growth environment
- Strong knowledge of HR best practices, employment laws, and industry trends
- Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills
- Ability to navigate ambiguity and thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment
What the job involves
- Generative AI represents a turning point for businesses in every industry
- Cohere is at the centre of enterprise transformation and is laser-focused on serving the enterprise sector, and its developers and partners
- The People Operations organisation is pivotal to the growth and success of Cohere
- As the Director, People Operations Partners (or POPs), reporting to our VP of People Operations, you will be a strategic business partner to senior leadership, providing thought leadership, and an expert on processes and systems to support HR priorities
- You will lead a growing team of People Ops Partners in shaping our organisational culture, fostering employee engagement, and driving talent development initiatives
- This role calls for a seasoned HR professional with a passion for building high-performance teams in a dynamic and evolving startup environment, preferably with experience in scale-up tech companies of 250+ employees
- Act as a strategic thought partner to senior leadership on areas such as organisational design and team structure
- Lead and mentor a team of People Ops Partners, providing expertise on HR processes and systems
- Develop and execute HR strategies aligned with Cohere's business objectives
- Provide strategic guidance to leadership on workforce planning and talent development
- Implement initiatives to enhance employee morale, satisfaction, and retention
- Foster a positive and inclusive workplace culture that aligns with Cohere's values
- Oversee performance management processes, providing guidance to managers on goal setting, performance evaluations, and professional development
- Collaborate with teams to identify training needs and design programs to enhance employee skills
- Implement career development plans to support employee growth and retention
- Drive continuous improvement in HR processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness
Our take
The AI industry biggest stakeholders insist that the next step in enhancing web experiences will be through natural language interactions. While this may be true, only companies with considerable resources can reasonably address the gap needed to bring NLP to the forefront of web integration. Cohere was founded to address this shortfall between NLP development, widespread usage, and the resources required.
Cohere works on building top-of-the-class NLP processing models and software which it makes available to customers through APIs and custom solutions. In a strategic move, the company has partnered with Google Cloud, giving them access to resources that will undoubtedly push the field of NLP forward. This allows Cohere to serve as middlemen by offering a wide range of customers a product built on unmatched technology.
AI is currently a worldwide talking point and so it is no surprise that Cohere has seen rapid development, and raised $270M in a 2023 funding round. The company plans to introduce a dialogue model that would resemble ChatGPT, however, in this case, its technology would be mainly accessible to developers and businesses.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
192% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Aug 2025
$500m
LATE VC
Jul 2024
$500m
SERIES D
Total funding: $1.4bn
Company benefits
- We cover 100% of premiums across health, dental, vision & travel
- We offer RRSP, 401K, and Pension Scheme contributions
- We offer lunch and fitness studio credits and a quality time fund which can be spent on things like dog walking and laundry services
- We want everyone who contributes to our success to get a ‘piece of the pie’
- Work Remote & PTO
- We know that some people work better at home, so we are remote-first, and sure that all meetings, events, and opportunities are set up for our distributed team
- Every employee at Cohere gets 6 weeks of paid time off & US and Canadian federal holidays, and we provide unlimited sick days
- All new parents (including those who adopt or go through a surrogate journey) are eligible to receive 100% salary for 6 months in Canada, the US, and the UK
- The decision and journey to having kids is different for each person and family. Part of our commitment to diversity is being able to support the widest variety of these scenarios as we can so we offer financial support for egg freezing and IVF for those in the US, Canada and the UK
- Every employee at Cohere receives an annual $2,000 education fund to use as they please
Company HQ
Grange Park, Toronto, ON
Leadership
Aidan Gomez
(CEO)Has a PhD in Computer Science from Oxford University. Previously worked as a Researcher at Google (Brain) and FOR.ai
Ivan Zhang
(CTO)Previous experience working in research and engineering at For.ai, Cortex labs, Pressly and Ranomics.
Nick Frosst
(CTO)Previously worked as a Research Engineer at Google (Brain).
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