Senior Manager, People Operations

About the Role

As our Senior Manager, People Operations, you'll be the connective tissue that makes Harvey's People function work seamlessly across teams, systems, and geographies. You'll design and operationalize the foundational processes that enable us to scale while maintaining excellence across the employee lifecycle. This role sits at the center of our People Operations and Workplace team — partnering with People Systems, People Business Partners, Recruiting, IT, Total Rewards, and Legal to translate strategy into scalable execution. You'll bring best-in-class frameworks and adapt them for Harvey's hypergrowth reality, building systems and processes that are both rigorous and pragmatic. This role reports to our People Operations Lead, Tia Thomson, and manages a team of People Operations Associates and Coordinators. At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate — not incrementally, but end-to-end. By combining frontier agentic AI, an enterprise-grade platform, and deep domain expertise, we’re reshaping how critical knowledge work gets done for decades to come. This is a rare chance to help build a generational company at a true inflection point. With 1000+ customers in 58+ countries, strong product-market fit, and world-class investor support, we’re scaling fast and defining a new category in real time. The work is ambitious, the bar is high, and the opportunity for growth — personal, professional, and financial — is unmatched. Our team is sharp, motivated, and deeply committed to the mission. We move fast, operate with intensity, and take real ownership of the problems we tackle — from early thinking to long-term outcomes. We stay close to our customers — from leadership to engineers — and work together to solve real problems with urgency and care. If you thrive in ambiguity, push for excellence, and want to help shape the future of work alongside others who raise the bar, we invite you to build with us. At Harvey, the future of professional services is being written today — and we’re just getting started.

Responsibilities

• Own Employee Lifecycle Processes and Services
• Design and operationalize end-to-end employee lifecycle processes from onboarding through offboarding — including employee changes, promotions, transfers, compensation adjustments, and exits
• Build and operationalize people processes for every country Harvey enters, ensuring compliance, seamless employee experience, and regional infrastructure
• Own employee services — managing our AI-powered ticketing system, triage, and routing, while continuously optimizing Employee HQ and self-service resources to ensure employees get fast, accurate answers
• Create clear, scalable SOPs and documentation that enable consistent execution across a growing team
• Drive ad-hoc projects and special initiatives that support Harvey's growth and evolving organizational needs
• Build Scalable Systems, Data, and Infrastructure
• Own HRIS data integrity — conducting audits, cleanup, and governance to ensure Workday is the reliable source of truth
• Generate people data reporting, dashboards, and workforce analytics to support decision-making and headcount planning
• Partner with People Systems team to identify system improvements and design core processes in Workday (onboarding, offboarding, probation periods, comp changes, and more)
• Manage global compliance programs in partnership with Legal — training enrollment and tracking (harassment prevention, code of conduct, etc.), policy governance, and audit readiness
• Manage vendor relationships with EOR providers, background check vendors, compliance tools, and other People Ops partners, evaluating new vendors and ensuring service excellence
• Lead change management and employee communications when rolling out new systems, policies, or programs
• Develop and Lead a High-Performing Team
• Manage and develop People Operations Associates and Coordinators, providing coaching and growth opportunities
• Build a team culture of ownership, excellence, and continuous improvement

Requirements

• 6-8+ years in People Operations, with 3-4+ years at a best-in-class organization
• Proven track record managing and developing high-performing teams — your people grow, stay, and rave about working for you
• Elite program and project management skills with exceptional process design capabilities — you build scalable systems from scratch, juggle multiple complex workstreams, and execute flawlessly across cross-functional teams
• Relentless "figure it out" factor with comfort in ambiguity, high ownership, low ego, and ability to balance rigor with speed — no task too small, you thrive in fast-paced environments where priorities shift
• Deep fluency with HRIS systems, particularly Workday — you understand system architecture, business processes, automations, and integrations
• Demonstrated experience supporting multi-country expansion with understanding of international employment compliance and operations
• Based in San Francisco able to work in-office at least three days per week