People Operations Manager

The problem.

A small firm either builds deliberate practices or drifts into accidental ones. The accidental ones are usually worse. Onboarding, relocation to Dubai, how decisions are recorded, how someone is employed and paid correctly under UAE rules: none of it is glamorous. All of it compounds.

What you would do.

• Own onboarding and relocation, so somebody's first week in Dubai is productive rather than administrative.
• Own payroll, benefits, visas and employment arrangements, working with counsel where the answer is not obvious.
• Build the working practices that make a team in one room function: what is written down, what is decided in a meeting, and what is nobody's business.
• Own the performance and progression conversations. Make them specific rather than ceremonial.
• Notice when somebody is quietly overloaded, and act before they tell you.

What we would want evidence of.

• You have run people operations in the UAE or another jurisdiction where employment and residence are tied together.
• You have built onboarding that people were grateful for, and can say what was in it.
• You have relocated people across borders and handled the problems that came with it.
• You write policy that is short and gets followed.
• You have raised something uncomfortable with a founder.

What would make this a bad fit.

This role is a poor fit if you want an HR function with systems in place. You would be selecting and implementing them.

This role is a poor fit if culture work to you means events. Culture here is mostly about how disagreement is handled, and it is built in writing.