
Trustly · London
WHO WE ARE At Trustly, we're building a smarter, faster, and more secure financial future by revolutionizing the world of payments. As a global leader in Open B...
At Trustly, we're building a smarter, faster, and more secure financial future by revolutionizing the world of payments. As a global leader in Open Banking Payments, we are establishing Pay by Bank as the new standard at checkout, providing unparalleled freedom, speed, and ease to millions of consumers and merchants worldwide.
Our Ambition: To build the world’s most disruptive payment network and redefine what the payment experience should feel like.
Trustly is a global team of innovators, collaborators, and doers. If you are driven by a strong sense of purpose and thrive in a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and high-growth environment, join us and be part of a team that’s transforming the way the world pays.
Our mission is simple yet ambitious: to seamlessly handle People Operations by striking the perfect balance between enablement and high-touch connection. We want to empower our organization with seamless self-service tools so HR information is always at their fingertips, while never losing sight of what matters most - building trust, cultivating deep relationships, and providing hands-on support exactly when and where it’s needed.
While day-to-day operations and relations are the heartbeat of this team, we are also the driving force behind the People agenda. From boosting employee engagement and refining performance management to launching cultural initiatives and driving automation, we help design the frameworks that set our global organization up for success.
You’ll partner closely with managers and employees to provide trusted HR expertise, navigate employee relations, and champion initiatives that elevate the overall employee lifecycle experience.
This role is the ultimate mix of tactical execution and foundational building. You will split your time between mastering essential HR administration and actively shaping people initiatives from the ground up. On one hand, you’ll handle day-to-day HR operations - such as supporting organizational changes, maintaining accurate employee records/HRIS systems, and ensuring policy compliance. On the other hand, you will have a direct hand in designing and implementing the scalable documentation, frameworks, and automated processes of our future.
Let’s be real: Last year, we officially transitioned into a truly global People function, merging fragmented regional frameworks and processes into a unified ecosystem. We are still very much in the thick of this transformation. If you are a builder who gets genuinely excited about managing daily operations while simultaneously laying down the foundational bricks of a global People team, this is the challenge you’ve been looking for!
ABOUT BLACK FOREST LABS We're the team behind Latent Diffusion, Stable Diffusion, and FLUX—foundational technologies that changed how the world creates images and video. We’re creating the generative models that power how people make images and video—tools used by millions of creators, developers, and businesses worldwide. Our FLUX models are among the most advanced in the world, and we're just getting started. Headquartered in Freiburg, Germany with a growing presence in San Francisco, we're scaling fast while staying true to what makes us different: research excellence, open science, and building technology that expands human creativity. WHY THIS ROLE You'll split your time between People Partnering and People Operations, with that balance shifting toward more partnering as we grow and the ops layer matures. You'll report into the Head of People and work closely with our existing EU People team member, taking the lead on partnering and providing guidance on ops quality and approach. This role suits someone who can hold a room with senior leaders, thinks commercially, and isn't too precious to roll up their sleeves when it matters. Your background might be in HR, Operations, Consulting, or Programme Management; what matters more is that you bring good judgement, a genuine interest in the people function, and the self-awareness to know what you don't yet know. Tech experience is essential, you'll be supporting engineers, researchers, and commercial teams, and you need to understand how they think. WHAT YOU’LL WORK ON PEOPLE PARTNERING * Serve as a key People Partner for EU-based managers and employees, providing support across performance, team effectiveness, and organisational design * Coach and develop managers across the org, building leadership capability as we scale * Own compensation strategy inputs and lead key employee lifecycle moments, performance cycles, promotions, difficult conversations * Lead employee relations matters in the EU with sound judgement and solid knowledge of German employment law; know when to escalate to external counsel * Be a trusted presence at HQ, the person leaders come to before a situation becomes a problem PEOPLE OPERATIONS * Set the standard for people ops quality in Europe; not doing everything yourself, but ensuring it's done well * Provide guidance to our EU Ops and People Partner, supporting their development and ensuring execution quality * Use data, tooling and AI to make People Ops smooth and scalable, spot inefficiencies and fix them * Own your portion of the People roadmap, from design through to delivery WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR ESSENTIAL * 7–10 years of experience in People, Operations, Consulting, Programme Management, or a related field - with meaningful HR exposure and a genuine interest in building the function * Must have worked in tech (deep tech e.g AI, infrastructure, developer tooling, fintech, or similar would be a bonus) * Must have startup or scale-up experience - you know what it feels like to build, not just inherit * Comfortable moving between strategic thinking and hands-on execution - you've done both and neither intimidates you * Strong coaching instincts with the credibility to influence senior stakeholders * Fluent in German and English. WHILE NOT REQUIRED, IT’S AN ADDED PLUS IF YOU ALSO HAVE: * Hands-on HR generalist experience * Experience being a senior or lead People hire in an early-stage or scaling environment * Experience building or significantly improving People processes from scratch * Working knowledge of German employment law * Exposure to cross-border or multi-entity employment in Europe HOW WE WORK TOGETHER We’re a distributed team with real offices that people actually use. This role will join us in Freiburg at least 2 days a week (or one full week every other week). We’ll cover reasonable travel costs to make this possible. We think in-person time matters, and we’ve structured things to make it accessible to all. We’ll discuss what this will look like for the role during our interview process. EVERYTHING WE DO IS GROUNDED IN FOUR VALUES: * Obsessed. We are a frontier research lab. The science has to be right, the understanding deep, the product beautiful. * Low Ego. The work speaks. The best idea wins, no matter who said it. Credit is shared. Nobody is above any task. * Bold. We take the ambitious bet. We ship, we do not wait for conditions to be perfect. * Kind. People over politics. We treat each other with genuine warmth. Agency without empathy creates chaos. If this sounds like work you’d enjoy, we’d love to hear from you BASE ANNUAL SALARY: €100,000 - €130,000 + EQUITY
GROWE WELCOMES THOSE WHO ARE EXCITED TO: * Act as a key HR point of contact, providing end-to-end support across the employee lifecycle: from onboarding, 1:1 check-ins to performance reviews to offboarding - ensuring smooth and effective people operations; * Partner closely with managers to enhance Performance Management practices to strengthen individual and team impact; * Provide guidance and day-to-day coaching to managers, helping them grow as people leaders and confidently navigate HR-related challenges; * Participate in the hiring process as the final HR step, assessing cultural fit, alignment with values, and role expectations before offers are made; * Collaborate with the Learning and Development team to identify development needs and align growth efforts with business priorities; * Monitor and enhance employee satisfaction and engagement, surfacing insights and driving action in partnership with business leaders; * Contribute to HR analytics by collecting and interpreting data to inform workforce strategy, performance trends, and team dynamics; * Help to refine and implement core HR practices, ensuring they are practical, people-centric, and aligned with company culture. WE NEED YOUR PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: * Minimum of 4 years of experience in an internal HR role (People Partner or HR Business Partner); * Proven experience supporting teams, ideally within a multicultural environment; * Solid understanding of employee evaluation methods and hands-on experience implementing various performance management tools; * Proficiency in English (written and spoken); * Coaching certification is a plus. WE APPRECIATE IF YOU HAVE THOSE PERSONAL FEATURES: * Excellent communication and negotiation skills, with the ability to build strong relationships with diverse stakeholders; * Strong critical thinking and problem-solving abilities; * Data-driven mindset with the ability to translate insights into action; * A natural sense of curiosity and eagerness to continuously improve processes and practices; * Cross-cultural awareness. WE ARE SEEKING THOSE WHO ALIGN WITH OUR CORE VALUES: * GROWE TOGETHER: Our team is our main asset. We work together and support each other to achieve our common goals; * DRIVE RESULT OVER PROCESS: We set ambitious, clear, measurable goals in line with our strategy and driving Growe to success; * BE READY FOR CHANGE: We see challenges as opportunities to grow and evolve. We adapt today to win tomorrow.
Note: this role is 5 days a week onsite ABOUT LIGHT Light is the AI-native finance platform built for hypergrowth. Founded in 2022, we've reimagined finance software from the ground up—processing hundreds of millions of records in under a second and automating multi-entity accounting across global jurisdictions. We're trusted by companies like Lovable and Legora, and backed by world-class investors including Balderton Capital, Atomico, Cherry Ventures, and Seedcamp. In summer 2025, we raised $30M in Series A funding, bringing total funding to $43M. While traditional ERPs bolt AI onto legacy systems, Light was built AI-first—from database design to user experience. The result: finance teams reduce operational workload by 84% and expand into new countries in days, not months. We’re expanding globally across London, Copenhagen, and soon New York. Join us as we build the finance platform that hypergrowth companies have been waiting for. THE ROLE We’re hiring a People Partner to own and evolve critical People systems & processes as Light continues through rapid scaling and growing across teams, geographies and complexity. This is a high ownership IC role, focused on continuous improvement and enabling a high performance organisation. Over the last 6 months we’ve gone from 40 → 90 and we are looking to make an additional 30+ hires this year. You will report directly to the Head of Finance & Core Ops, and work closely with the wider leadership team, acting as a key partner on people related decisions, while also building and executing within all pillars of HR WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT & FEEDBACK SYSTEMS * Own the design, execution, and iteration of Light’s performance review and feedback cycles * Ensure performance processes are rigorous, consistent, and drive high-performance behaviours * Work with leadership to maintain clear expectations, accountability, and promotion decisions COMPENSATION & PROGRESSION FRAMEWORKS * Own compensation review cycles, benchmarking, and internal alignment processes * Build, maintain and evolve role levels and progression frameworks across the company * Ensure compensation and promotion decisions are structured, fair, and consistently applied ORG DESIGN & LEADERSHIP PARTNERING * Partner with leadership on org structure, scaling decisions, and team effectiveness * Advise on organisational changes during growth, ensuring clarity and operational effectiveness * Identify and resolve structural bottlenecks as the company scales HIRING & TALENT PARTNERING * Partner with Finance and leadership on workforce planning and headcount allocation across teams and geographies * Support definition and structuring of roles to ensure clarity of scope, level, and organisational fit * Provide input into hiring prioritisation and sequencing as the company scales PEOPLE OPERATIONS & SYSTEMS * Own core People processes including onboarding, offboarding, and employee lifecycle moments * Improve HR systems and tooling (e.g. HiBob) to ensure scalability and accuracy * Build operational clarity across People processes as the company grows CULTURE & WAYS OF WORKING * Shape and reinforce effective ways of working as Light scales * Identify cultural and organisational friction points and drive improvements with leadership * Strengthen communication rhythms, alignment, and operational cadence across teams COMPANY WORKPLACE & EVENTS * Own the day-to-day workplace experience across Light’s London office, ensuring it is functional, well-run, and aligned with company culture * Own planning and execution of company offsites and key team events * Design experiences that strengthen alignment, trust, and cohesion across global teams YOUR QUALIFICATIONS * 5+ years experience in a People Partner, People Manager or HRBP role in a high-growth environment * Ownership of people systems (performance, compensation, hiring, onboarding) * Exposure to scaling SaaS companies through scaling phases * Strong business acumen and ability to translate company priorities into people systems * High agency and comfort operating independently in fast-moving environments * Strong stakeholder management experience with senior leadership exposure * Structured, analytical thinking and ability to operate in ambiguity * Working knowledge of UK and European employment frameworks BONUS POINTS * Experience across both Talent Acquisition and broader People/HR systems * Experience designing or significantly evolving performance or compensation systems * Experience owning company-wide events or offsites at scale