Head of People - Maternity Cover

About Paired

At Paired, we’re on a mission to help romantic couples stay in love. So we created a fun, safe space for couples to explore their relationship and grow together. Backed by expert advice and cutting-edge research, our app delivers engaging questions, games, and quizzes that improve key relationship skills in just minutes each day.

And it works. Our app is the #1 couples app globally with +12M downloads, +200,000 daily active users, and more than £5M of fundraising to date. We’ve won multiple awards from Apple and Google, recognising us for our innovative approach to romantic relationship health.

Although we are a remote-first team hiring in the UK and Spain, keeping our employees connected remains extremely important. To bring everyone together, we meet three times a year at various European locations for focused co-working weeks and dynamic team-building activities.

About The Role

At Paired, people are at the heart of everything we do. We’re a 45-person Seed-stage startup, proud to have built a culture where people can grow, belong, and do their best work. Our focus is creating an environment where our team wants to stay and where new future hires are excited to join. We might not have every People process implemented or every perk under the sun (yet), but we focus on what matters: meaningful work, strong relationships, fair rewards, and room to grow.

We’re looking for a People leader who thrives in fast-moving environments and is passionate about owning the full People experience: from strategy and culture to hands-on people operations. Reporting to our COO, you’ll have the opportunity to shape, own, and deliver strategies that truly define the end-to-end employee experience at Paired. Your most important outcome during your time with us: Ensure Paired remains a great place to work today and build the foundations to make it even better tomorrow.

This is a 12-month, full-time role based in the UK, starting in summer 2025, offered as a fixed-term employment contract with the possibility of extension.

What Your Role Encompasses

• People Strategy: Translate engagement insights, performance outcomes, and cultural priorities into people strategy and execution
• Employee Experience: Own the entire lifecycle from Talent Attraction to Offboarding (incl. associated administrative tasks), ensuring a seamless, inclusive, and supportive journey during the time at Paired
• Talent Acquisition: Help us find the best people, fast. Support Hiring Managers as a key resource for managing their own recruitment processes, with an interim recruiter supporting sourcing and pipeline creation currently
• People Development: Guide leaders through employee development, promotions, and performance & salary conversations
• Culture and Belonging: Nurture a connected, transparent, and values-driven culture in a fully remote setup
• International People Operations: Oversee compliance and employee experience in collaboration with our Employer of Record partners, ensuring that the UK employee experience is adapted for international teams
• Team Offsites: Design and deliver memorable company-wide meetups that foster collaboration and community three times per year

Requirements

• Proven experience managing People functions hands-on within the Tech space. Bonus points for experience with a fully remote or international environment
• Experience supporting a startup of < 200 people in their early stages
• Confidence in influencing C-Level leadership and coaching junior managers through complex People topics
• An outcomes-first mindset with the ability to operate autonomously and deliver end-to-end initiatives
• An empathetic leader, able to navigate delicate people situations with compassion and decisiveness
• Strong prioritization skills with a focus on high-impact initiatives and the ability to manage competing demands maintaining your focus and well-being
• A pragmatic, people-centric approach to policies, processes, and leadership support
• Expertise in developing scalable talent acquisitions and retention strategies to attract and keep top talent
• Deep understanding of UK employment law and best practices and a keen interest in learning about international markets (with a focus on Spain, our 2nd hiring location)
• Data-focused, committed to bringing facts to an often complicated and emotional field such as People
• HR tech savvy to manage our tools and implement new ones as needed
• A valid UK working permit or passport (no sponsorship requirements)

Nice to have:

• Previous experience managing global employment models, including working with EOR partners

Benefits

• Yearly salary between £80-88K 
• Three annual in-person events across Europe: two focused coworking weeks and one team-building retreat
• Fully remote, with optional access to our London office or a subsidised co-working space
• 25 days annual leave (+public holidays)
• Yearly learning budget of £1,000
• Three months paid maternity leave, one month paid paternity leave inclusive same-sex and adoptive parents
• Comprehensive health insurance
• Opportunity to help millions of people with their relationship

Hiring process

1. Application review (qualifications, experience, and motivation)
2. 1st interview with our Head of People
3. Task - We’ll send you a task to complete at home to assess your practical skills
4. Team interviews - The final step involves interviews with different team members you would be working with on a day-to-day basis

Diversity & Inclusion at Paired

• Our core value is championing relationships. Our app was built to serve all couples regardless of culture, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity
• We strive to create an inclusive environment where unique perspectives are encouraged, as we firmly believe that diversity enhances our company, culture and product
• We regularly review our hiring processes, materials and pipeline to ensure they are accessible and free of bias, offering equal opportunity to underrepresented groups. We are also always learning. We maintain open minds and welcome feedback on how we can improve