Head of Talent and People

Who we are:

Sardine is the leading agentic risk platform for fighting financial crime. Our integrated solution unifies data across risk teams to help organizations stop fraud in real time, prevent AI-driven attacks, and automate fraud and AML operations. Sardine’s platform is strengthened by one of the fastest-growing fraud consortiums in the market, spanning more than 6 billion profiled devices, 800 million consumers, and 3 million businesses worldwide. Leading companies including FIS, GoDaddy, Intuit, Edward Jones, ZoomInfo, and Checkout.com rely on Sardine to secure and grow trust in their products.

Our culture:

We have hubs in the Bay Area, NYC, Austin, Toronto, and São Paulo. However, we maintain a remote-first work culture. #WorkFromAnywhere

We hire talented, self-motivated individuals with extreme ownership and high growth orientation.

We value performance and not hours worked. We believe you shouldn't have to miss your family dinner, your kid's school play, friends get-together, or doctor's appointments for the sake of adhering to an arbitrary work schedule.

About the role

Sardine is looking for a Head of Talent & People to lead and grow our global team. This is a hands-on, player-coach role - you'll set direction and manage a full team of practitioners, while still staying close enough to the work to source a hard-to-fill candidate yourself, sit in on a tough employee relations conversation, or dig into a comp band directly. You'll own Talent, People Ops, and HR Business Partnering end-to-end, with a mandate to build pragmatic systems that scale with a fast-growing startup.

What you'll be doing

Team Leadership

Lead and manage a team of Recruiters, People Ops/HR professionals, including any team leads within those functions

Set goals, priorities, and capacity plans across Recruitment and People Ops/HR

Coach, develop, and performance-manage team; build a bench of future team leads as the org grows

Own headcount planning across the organization

Create the operating rhythm for the team (standups, pipeline reviews, OKRs, hiring sprints) without over-processizing a still-scrappy function

Model the player-coach standard you expect from the team - jump into the work alongside them

Talent Acquisition (the largest part of the job. This role is Talent-heavy)

Build and continuously improve our hiring process: interview loops, scorecards, calibration, and candidate experience

Partner directly with the CEO and Exec team on leadership hires. Own full-cycle recruiting for key leadership roles, including sourcing, screening, and closing candidates yourself

Build scalable sourcing channels and employer branding so Sardine competes for top talent without over-relying on agencies

Track and report on hiring metrics (pipeline health, time-to-fill, offer acceptance) and adjust strategy accordingly

People Operations

Oversee the People Ops Lead and team who own the employee lifecycle (onboarding, offboarding, HRIS administration, benefits administration, and compliance) - ensure the function runs smoothly and scales with rest of the company

Manage and scale our existing performance review, compensation banding, leveling, and promotion cycle infrastructure - this is already built and robust; your job is to run it well, refine it as we grow, and make sure it stays credible with employees and managers

Ensure compliance with employment law across jurisdictions where Sardine has employees, in partnership with your People Ops team

Provide oversight and escalation support on vendor relationships (benefits brokers, payroll providers) that the People Ops Lead manages day to day

HR Business Partnering

Act as a trusted advisor to managers and the leadership team on org design, team structure, performance management, and employee relations

Partner with leaders as an internal leadership coach

Handle employee relations issues with sound judgment, discretion, and fairness

What you'll need

12+ years in talent/recruiting and people roles, with real depth in talent

Experience running people function at fast-paced, high-growth tech startups

Proven experience managing a strong Talent and People team, ideally spanning both Recruitment and People Ops/HR - you know how to set direction, hold people accountable, and develop managers

Generalist range: you're equally credible talking about an offer negotiation, a comp band, a difficult employee relations issue, or a performance management

A player-coach mindset - you want to do the work, not just direct it

Excellent judgment and discretion; you build trust quickly with founders, execs, and employees at every level

Strong operating instincts: you build lightweight, scalable systems rather than heavy process

Based in the Bay Area, with the ability to work from our Berkeley office at least 2 days every week

Benefits we offer:

Generous compensation in cash and equity

Early exercise for all options, including pre-vested

Work from anywhere: Remote-first Culture

Flexible paid time off and Year-end break

Health insurance, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents - US and Canada specific

4% matching in 401k / RRSP - US and Canada specific

MacBook Pro delivered to your door

One-time stipend to set up a home office — desk, chair, screen, etc.

Monthly meal stipend

Monthly social meet-up stipend

Annual health and wellness stipend

Annual Learning stipend

Join a fast-growing company with world-class professionals from around the world. If you are seeking a meaningful career, you found the right place, and we would love to hear from you.

To learn more about how we process your personal information and your rights in regards to your personal information as an applicant and Sardine employee, please visit our Applicant and Worker Privacy Notice.

Compensation Range: $250K - $300K