Talent and People Manager

Quick facts

Team: Operations
Reports to: Head of Operations
Location : Fully remote, UK only.
Candidates must be based in the 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 employees have 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

• Experience running people operations and talent hands‑on in a company of 45+ 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.

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 45+ across engineering and design, customer success, performance and commercial, spread across the world. That means your work has a real, visi

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