Director of People

About Goodfire Goodfire is a research company using interpretability to understand, learn from, and design AI systems. Our mission is to build the next generation of safe and powerful AI—not by scaling alone, but by understanding the intelligence we're building. Scaling has proven powerful, but today's approach is fundamentally limited: we can't meaningfully understand, debug, or shape what models learn. Every engineering discipline has been gated by fundamental science and AI is at that inflection point now. We're advancing the science of how AI systems actually work. Treating models as black boxes is an unnecessary handicap—we have access to the structures inside them, and understanding those structures lets us steer what models learn, make them safer and more useful, and extract the vast knowledge they contain. Our goal is to make AI that can be understood, debugged, and shaped like software. Goodfire is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco with a team of the world’s top interpretability researchers and engineers from organizations like OpenAI and DeepMind. We're backed by over $200M from B Capital, Menlo Ventures, Lightspeed, Eric Schmidt, and others. About the role We’re hiring a Director of People Ops to build the infrastructure that enables us to scale the highest-performing AI research organization in the world and consistently win. You’ll own the systems, processes, and programs that support our people across the employee lifecycle, and you’ll build most of it from scratch.  You find intensity exhilarating, move with urgency, and thrive when faced with challenges. You’re someone we can lean on to make exceptional judgment calls, and you go out of your way to make sure our people feel genuinely cared for and supported. You’ll be the secret weapon behind our ability to attract and build a world-class team, creating an organization that gives us a lasting competitive edge. Key responsibilities Own and execute Goodfire’s People strategy across hiring, talent, compensation, employee experience, and organizational development as the company scales Own compensation, leveling, and equity philosophy, ensuring our approach is competitive, internally consistent, and aligned with our goals to attract and retain exceptional talent Own the full employee lifecycle, from onboarding through offboarding, ensuring a smooth, high-quality employee experience at every stage Build scalable People systems, processes, and infrastructure that support rapid growth while maintaining a high bar for employee experience and operational excellence Lead benefits administration and strategy, including enrollments, changes, employee support, and vendor management Serve as the go-to People partner for employees and managers, responding to questions and concerns with care, speed, discretion, and sound judgment Shape and reinforce a high-performance, mission-driven culture as Goodfire scales, preserving trust, intensity, and high standards Lead employee relations and navigate sensitive, high-stakes people situations with sound judgment, discretion, empathy, and appropriate risk awareness Oversee visa and immigration processes, partnering with external counsel/vendors to support employees through each stage of the process Own People-related compliance and risk management, ensuring Goodfire’s policies, practices, and processes evolve appropriately as the company grows Communicate People-related updates and initiatives to the broader team in a way that is clear, warm, consistent, and aligned with Goodfire’s culture Our values Goodfire is looking for individuals who embody our values and share our deep commitment to making interpretability accessible. We are building a team first and foremost. Put mission and team first All we do is in service of our mission. We trust each other, deeply care about the success of the organization, and choose to put our team above ourselves. Improve constantly We are constantly looking to improve every piece of the business. We proactively critique ourselves and others in a kind and thoughtful way that translates to practical improvements in the organization. We are pragmatic and consistently implement the obvious fixes that work. Take ownership and initiative There are no bystanders here. We proactively identify problems and take full responsibility over getting a strong result. We are self-driven, own our mistakes, and feel deep responsibility over what we’re building. Action today We have a small amount of time to do something incredibly hard and meaningful. The pace and intensity of the organization is high. If we can take action today or tomorrow, we will choose to do it today. Where we work We are hiring for this position in our San Francisco office who’d be onsite 5 days a week. What we offer This role offers market competitive salary, equity, and competitive benefits. The expected salary range for this positio