Director, People

COMPANY OVERVIEW Deepgram is the leading platform underpinning the emerging trillion-dollar Voice AI economy, providing real-time APIs for speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and building production-grade voice agents at scale. More than 200,000 developers and 1,300+ organizations build voice offerings that are ‘Powered by Deepgram’, including Twilio, Cloudflare, Sierra, Decagon, Vapi, Daily, Cresta, Granola, and Jack in the Box. Deepgram’s voice-native foundation models are accessed through cloud APIs or as self-hosted and on-premises software, with unmatched accuracy, low latency, and cost efficiency. Backed by a recent Series C led by leading global investors and strategic partners, Deepgram has processed over 50,000 years of audio and transcribed more than 1 trillion words. There is no organization in the world that understands voice better than Deepgram. COMPANY OPERATING RHYTHM At Deepgram, we expect an AI-first mindset—AI use and comfort aren’t optional, they’re core to how we operate, innovate, and measure performance. Every team member who works at Deepgram is expected to actively use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and even build your own into your everyday work. We measure how effectively AI is applied to deliver results, and consistent, creative use of the latest AI capabilities is key to success here. Candidates should be comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do. Additionally, we move at the pace of AI. Change is rapid, and you can expect your day-to-day work to evolve just as quickly. This may not be the right role if you’re not excited to experiment, adapt, think on your feet, and learn constantly, or if you’re seeking something highly prescriptive with a traditional 9-to-5. ABOUT THE ROLE This is a role that requires both strategic thinking and operational depth. You'll need to understand the why behind the people agenda, shape how it gets executed, and manage a team that delivers it. You're not just translating instructions, you're bringing judgment, perspective, and initiative to a broad functional remit that spans the full employee lifecycle. At the same time, you run the tactical layer. You manage the People Ops Management and the HRBP teams, hold the bar on execution, and make sure each function is operating cleanly and at pace. It's a lean team today, and part of your job is helping us figure out where and when to grow it by shaping what the entire People function should look like as Deepgram scales, and building out the team to match. This is a remote first role, with some travel. The overall Deepgram team is distributed across multiple time zones and countries, so experience and comfort operating asynchronously and making a distributed team feel connected and well-run is crucial. WHAT YOU'LL OWN - Team leadership — directly managing the People Ops Manager and HRBP team. You run 1:1s, set priorities, give real feedback, develop each person's capability, and hold the bar. The team's output is your output. - Execution of the people roadmap — You own the plan that gets it done: scoping the work, sequencing it, assigning it, and making sure it ships. Nothing stalls because someone didn't know what to do next. - HRBP function quality — you're responsible for the caliber of partnership the HRBPs deliver to the business. That means coaching them on complex employee situations, reviewing their work, and making sure they're operating as true business partners and not just HR administrators. - People Ops function oversight — partnering closely with the People Ops Manager to ensure the operational backbone (HRIS, lifecycle, compliance, benefits) is running cleanly and improving over time. You don't run it, but you make sure it's being run well. - Performance management — owning the execution of performance cycles, calibration support, and the ongoing coaching infrastructure that helps managers have better conversations with their teams. - Employee experience — ensuring employees at every stage of the lifecycle, from onboarding through development to offboarding, have an experience that reflects who Deepgram is and what we expect of ourselves. - Talent development — driving the programs and infrastructure that help Deepgram employees grow: manager training, career frameworks, development programming, and the tools that make growth legible. - Compliance and policy — making sure the company stays ahead of employment law requirements, policy gaps, and risk exposure across all people practices. This includes funding Due Diligence work and any potential M&As. - Senior escalation point — complex employee relations situations, sensitive manager conversations, anything that needs more experience or authority than the HRBP level. You handle these directly and with good judgment. - Cross-functional presence — representing the People function in operational and cross-functional threads that don't need the Head of People in the room. You're a credible, trusted partner to the ELT and business leaders in your own right. - AI-native execution — actively using AI tools in your own work and driving adoption across your team and the company. You're expected to be raising the ceiling on what a lean people function can produce. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - 8–12 years in People/HR, with direct experience managing HRBPs or People partners - Broad functional depth — you've touched performance, comp, compliance, employee experience, and talent development, not just one slice of the people function - A strong operator and team developer — you get energy from making a team perform, not just doing the work yourself - Proven ability to take strategic direction and drive execution through others without losing fidelity to the original intent - Strategic thinker who can operate in the details — you bring your own point of view to how the work gets done, not just the ability to follow a plan - Good judgment on escalation — you know what to handle, what to push back down, and what actually needs to go up - Active AI tool user. Not aspirational — tell us what you use and what you've built with it - Direct communicator who can represent the People function credibly with managers and ELT members