Talent and People Manager in London

Driftrock is hiring a Talent and People Manager to run our people function day to day and own recruitment end to end, from sourcing and interviewing through to onboarding, while making Driftrock a brilliant place to work.

Quick facts

• Team: Operations
• Reports to: Head of Operations
• Location: Fully remote, UK
• Contract: Full-time, permanent
• Salary: £50,000 to £65,000 (based on experience and skills) + share options
• Start date: As soon as we find the right person

Why this role exists

At Driftrock, we help some of the world's best-known brands turn advertising into real customers. It's a pivotal time as we grow fast across the UK and internationally, and the next few years will be the most exciting in our story so far. That growth is all about people. We're looking for a dedicated talent lead to own our people function end-to-end, shaping how we hire, grow, look after brilliant people, and helping define the culture as we scale. If you want to make Driftrock a place where the best in the industry build their career and help us scale, this is the role for you.

What you’ll own

You'll own the smooth, compliant, day-to-day running of people management and talent at Driftrock, managing recruitment and onboarding, making sure every employee has a great experience from offer to exit, and that our people processes are reliable, well-documented, and ready to scale. You'll work closely with the Head of Operations and team leaders, with plenty of room to grow your scope as the team and the function grow.

Your first 90 days

• By day 30: Get to know the team, take over day-to-day people operations (payroll, contracts, onboarding), pick up live recruitment straight away, running interviews, managing candidates through the pipeline and map every people process, policy, and system we have in place today.
• By day 60: Run your first full payroll cycle smoothly, own talent end to end (from job brief and sourcing through interviewing to offer), and deliver a prioritised list of what to tighten or upgrade.
• By day 90: Implement your first process improvements, own talent across all live roles, and become the trusted first point of contact for all people and talent queries.

What you'll be doing

• Own recruitment day to day: job descriptions, sourcing, rounds of interviews, and coordinating with team leads through to offer and onboarding.
• Run a comprehensive onboarding experience and follow up so every new joiner settles in well.
• Run payroll across three systems and administer benefits, annual leave, and contract renewals accurately and on time.
• Draft employment, consultancy contracts and offer letters, and keep our people practices legally compliant with support from our lawyers.
• Maintain people policies, the employee handbook, and support home-working health & safety and people-related risk.
• Audit our current people processes and systems, recommend and implement upgrades as the team grows.
• Manage IT setup, device management (so everyone has the tools they need to work securely) and off-boarding.
• Be the first point of contact for people queries, handle disciplinary, grievance and off-boarding processes, including exit interviews.

What you'll bring

We care more about evidence of impact than a specific number of years. You'll probably recognise yourself in most of the below:

• Experience running people operations and talent hands-on in a company of 35+ people, including scaling processes as it grew.
• Strong working knowledge of UK employment law, people best practice and compliance, with hands-on contract and policy management.
• A track record running recruitment and onboarding end to end.
• Experience managing payroll, benefits and people systems, ideally across multiple countries, accurately and on time.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and sound judgement on sensitive, confidential matters.
• A reliable self-starter who can set direction and deliver it, taking ownership rather than waiting to be told.

Bonus points

• Experience supporting a remote-first or internationally distributed team.
• Familiarity with Employer of Record models and multi-country payroll.
• Comfortable with technology and tools.

Not sure you tick every box? Please apply anyway. If you can show us you've moved the metric that matters, we want to hear from you.

Why Driftrock

Driftrock's mission is to become the world-leading automotive and e-mobility marketing platform, and to help accelerate the transition to clean transport. We work with some of the world's biggest brands, including BMW, BYD, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, and partner with the world's leading platforms, including Meta, Google, mobile.de and Auto Trader. We've been building since 2013, we're ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and TISAX certified, and our work enables billions of euros in vehicle sales every year. We're a tight-knit, fully remote team of 35+ across engineering and design, customer success, performance and commercial, spread across the world. That means your work has a real, visible impact on our product, our culture and how we operate.

How we work is shaped by four values:

• We care: about our customers, our team and the people who see the marketing we power. Work isn't done until we can prove it's useful.
• Be that person: if something needs fixing, fix it. It's never someone else's problem.
• People-first: we put people at the core of everything, and never compromise security or privacy for results.
• Be better today than you were yesterday: we bake learning and continuous improvement into everything we do.

In practice that looks like weekly Monday Showcases where we share what we're learning, regular retros, a budget to attend the courses and conferences that grow you, Donut coffee pairings to stay connected, and an annual company Summit that brings the whole global team together in person.

What's in it for you

We're remote-first and flexible about how and where you work, with co-working space available if you want it. Alongside your salary:

• Share options in Driftrock, on founder-friendly, tax-efficient EMI terms, including the option to retain vested options after leaving (at board discretion).
• Comprehensive Vitality health cover: medical, dental, vision, hearing, mental-health support and therapy, cancer cover, a free Headspace subscription and Vitality rewards.
• 24 to 28 days' holiday (24 + 1 extra each year, capped at 28), plus bank holidays.
• Pension contributions, life assurance (3x salary) and income protection.
• Electric car salary-sacrifice scheme (Octopus): save up to ~40%, with insurance, servicing and a charging perk included.
• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave.
• A learning budget for books, courses and conferences, plus time for personal goals.
• Perks and discounts via CharlieHR, and a BMW Group employee discount programme.

Our hiring process

A short intro call to cover the basics both ways. A deeper call with the Head of Operations about your experience and skills. A final conversation with our CEO to wrap up. We'll always tell you where you stand, and we welcome questions at any stage.

Inclusion at Driftrock

Driftrock is an equal-opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of every background, identity and life experience, and we're building a team that reflects the people our marketing reaches. We don't make decisions based on age, disability, gender, gender identity, marital status, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, or sexual orientation. If you need any adjustments to the application or interview process to do your best, just let us know, and we're glad to help.

We will not be considering recruitment agencies for this role.

By applying for this job you give us permission to store your data on our secure applicant tracking system and to contact you about Driftrock job opportunities. We process your data for recruitment purposes only and keep it until this role is filled, after which we will delete it or, with your agreement, keep it for similar future roles for up to 12 months. See our privacy policy at driftrock.com/privacy-policy for how we comply with GDPR, including how to access, correct, delete or restrict the data we hold. You can lodge a complaint with the UK supervisory authority (the Information Commissioner's Office), or contact our DPO for any concerns.