Founding People Operations & Talent Lead — Remote DTC/E-commerce

We are a fast-growing remote DTC/e-commerce company hiring approximately 3–5 people per month across creative, growth, customer support, and operations roles.
We are hiring our first dedicated People leader. This is not a recruitment-only or HR administration role. Your mission is to build and personally run a practical People function that removes the Founder from routine hiring, onboarding, performance follow-up, employee issues, and people administration.
This is a hands-on builder role. You must be comfortable creating the systems and personally executing the work.
What You Will Own

• Build quarterly headcount plans and maintain hiring priorities.
• Recruit creative and growth talent, including Creative Strategists, Video Editors, Graphic Designers, Copywriters, Creator/UGC roles, Media Buyers, Customer Support, and Operations roles.
• Own recruitment from role intake, JD and sourcing through screening, interviews, trials, references, offers, and candidate follow-up.
• Build and run preboarding, onboarding, probation, contract-change, and offboarding processes.
• Maintain employee and contractor records, contracts, access registers, leave, attendance, payroll inputs, and important dates.
• Work with functional leads to establish role scorecards, KPIs, quality expectations, and probation standards.
• Run performance-review cadences and manage documentation, warnings, PIPs, difficult conversations, and follow-up actions.
• Serve as the first point of contact for routine employee questions, conflicts, leave, working hours, and manager communication.
• Build practical SOPs, trackers, dashboards, reminders, and reporting—not unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Send the Founder a concise weekly People update covering recruitment, probation, performance risks, employee issues, and decisions requiring Founder involvement.

Functional leads will continue to judge professional quality in creative, marketing, and other specialist areas. You will own the people process, evidence, communication, documentation, and follow-up action.
What Success Looks Like in the First 90 Days

• One reliable source of truth for all employees, contractors, contracts, and key dates.
• A visible recruitment dashboard and repeatable hiring process.
• Consistent onboarding and 30/60/90-day probation processes.
• Documented performance, warning, PIP, and offboarding procedures.
• Managers receive timely reminders and support.
• The Founder is no longer managing routine recruiting coordination, onboarding follow-ups, employee questions, or performance documentation.

What We Need

• Experience in a remote-first startup, DTC/e-commerce company, or performance marketing agency.
• Proven ownership of both end-to-end recruitment and People Operations.
• Evidence of systems personally built from scratch.
• Experience recruiting creative or performance-growth talent.
• Experience handling underperformance, employee conflict, PIPs, or termination.
• Strong written and spoken English.
• Comfortable working independently and bringing proposed solutions—not simply escalating every issue.
• Willing to work hands-on without delegating sourcing, screening, and follow-up.
• Full-time availability without another conflicting full-time position.

How to Apply (Please follow otherwise will be ignored)
Please answer briefly but specifically:
1. Which remote startup or DTC/e-commerce company did you support, and approximately how large was the team?
2. List the main roles you personally filled during your most recent 12 active recruiting months, including approximate hiring numbers and time-to-fill, and which countries did you hire from.
3. Describe one People process or SOP you personally built from scratch: what existed before, what you created, and the result.
4. Describe one underperformance, investigation, PIP, conflict, or termination case you personally handled.
5. Are you currently employed or supporting other clients? If hired, can you commit to one full-time role?
6. Your CV, expected monthly base, and your start date.