People Operations Lead

Are you passionate about learning languages? About helping people connect and communicate across cultures, for travel, friendship, or career advancement? About making an impact to our company and our 25MM+ learners? Come join our NY-based team as a People Operations Lead.

About the Role

Babbel is hiring a People Operations Lead to be a hands-on operator who will partner closely with the US leadership team to ensure the People strategy drives company performance.

The People Lead owns all aspects of People Operations, Employee Experience, Compliance, and Talent Development, building on the existing systems, processes, and culture that support Babbel’s US operations. In this role, you’ll balance strategic leadership with tactical execution; from onboarding and managing benefits to coaching managers and building scalable programs. This is an ideal role for a hands-on builder who thrives in fast-paced environments and wants to touch all aspects of the employee lifecycle. This role reports into the US CEO.

What You’ll Do

• Manage payroll, benefits, onboarding and offboarding, and compliance via Justworks

• Maintain and scale People processes, policies, documentation, and programs that reduce risk and drive clarity

• Lead employee engagement, recognition, and culture initiatives

• Serve as a trusted advisor to managers on performance, feedback, and employee relations

• Manage performance evaluation cycles; create frameworks for promotions and compensation adjustment

• Oversee full recruiting processes, including sourcing, screening, managing the candidate experience, and closing candidates

• Design and deliver learning programs and career frameworks

• Ensure clear internal communication and alignment across teams

• Create People analytics dashboards and provide insights to CEO and US leadership team

• Partner with the Berlin People team

• Supervise the office/operations manager

Who You Are

You are a hands-on operator and strategic partner who thrives at the intersection of people, culture, and business. You balance empathy with operational rigor and enjoy creating structure in fast-moving environments.

Experience

• 5-6+ years in People Operations, ideally in growing companies

• Prior experience as a Senior Manager or People Lead in a high-growth SaaS startup

• Proven success managing a PEO (preferably Justworks)

• Strong understanding of employment law, compliance, and people analytics

• Experience designing and implementing manager enablement programs from scratch

• Track record of partnering with leaders and managers to align people and business strategy

• Strong proficiency in Google Suite (Docs, Sheets, Slides)

• International experience a plus

• Enthusiasm for language-learning a plus

This position is located in NYC and requires a minimum of 3 days/week in office.

Salary Information

In New York City, the reasonable annualized full-time salary for this role is $125,000 - $155,000, and placement within this range will vary based on several factors including, but not limited to experience, education, licensure/certifications, training and skill level.

Babbel is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion.