People Experience Director, Upstart

• 10+ years of experience across employee experience, internal communications, enterprise program management, People/HR programs, organizational change, or a related field
• A track record of owning complex, enterprise-wide programs that affect a broad employee population and require alignment across senior, cross-functional stakeholders
• Exceptional strategic and systems thinking. You can take an ambiguous problem, identify the root need, develop a clear recommendation, and translate it into a practical plan
• Excellent written and verbal communication. You make complexity clear, adapt to the audience, and can present a well-supported point of view to senior leaders
• Strong influence and relationship-building skills, including the confidence to challenge a partner, negotiate tradeoffs, or say 'not now' when the employee experience requires it
• Comfort using quantitative and qualitative data to identify patterns, test assumptions, and recommend action
• High standards for execution and an eagerness to roll up your sleeves. You do not believe seniority puts distance between you and the work
• Sound judgment about when to act independently, when to seek additional context, and when a decision requires escalation
• Curiosity, humility, and the willingness to change your mind when new information points to a better answer

Desirable

• Own the strategy, design, and end-to-end delivery of Upstart's mid-year and year-end performance cycles, creating a clear and effective experience for employees and managers
• Lead Upstart's employee listening strategy and Pulse program, partnering with People Analytics and HRBPs to move from survey data to organizational insight, leader action, and meaningful follow-through with employees
• Drive the employee program for GenAI acceleration, helping Upstarters adopt new tools and ways of working through thoughtful change strategy, communications, learning, experimentation, and measurement
• Build and govern a dynamic enterprise employee engagement calendar that gives the People Team and senior leaders a clear view of significant employee asks, upcoming communications, timing conflicts, and cumulative burden
• Partner with functional owners across Upstart to improve the timing, sequencing, messaging, and delivery of major company-wide employee asks while they retain ownership of the underlying program
• Strengthen our employee resource groups by defining a clear purpose, sustainable operating model, shared standards, annual rhythm, and self-service tools for volunteer leaders and executive sponsors
• Identify employee-facing needs that do not yet have a clear strategy or owner, develop a point of view, align stakeholders, and build practical approaches that can scale
• Translate program insights into concise recommendations for People and business leaders, bringing strong judgment about employee needs, organizational tradeoffs, and effective implementation
• Establish clear measures of success, use data and feedback to improve the portfolio, and build the documentation, governance, and operating practices that support future scale