People Ops

Who we are

Arena Physica is on a mission to accelerate hardware innovation that powers human progress. Our name is inspired by Theodore Roosevelt's 'Citizenship in a Republic' speech. To us, entering the Arena means committing fully and accepting the risk of failure in pursuit of an audacious, worthy cause. We believe the future belongs to those brave enough to build it.

Our team of 60 combines AI engineering and applied physics expertise with deep experience in enterprise deployments. We're headquartered in NYC with presences in San Francisco and Los Angeles, backed by ~$90M from Initialized, Founders Fund, Goldcrest Capital, Fifth Down Capital, and Shield Capital.

If you're ready to do the most important work of your career, join us in the Arena.

What we do

At Arena Physica, we're building electromagnetic superintelligence. Our AI platform Atlas operationalizes physics-grounded intelligence to verify, debug, and optimize hardware across its lifecycle. Atlas is already trusted globally by the world's most advanced hardware companies, including AMD, Anduril, and Bausch & Lomb, for applications across R&D, integration testing, production assembly, and field repair.

About the role

As our People Operations Manager, you will own the operational elements of the employee experience for a team of 70 across functions and determine how new team members are hired, onboarded, insured, and supported for the length of their time here.

As the founding member of our People Ops team that means building systems from the ground-up as a generalist with multiple workstreams. You'll be in the HRIS, on the phone with our broker, supporting employee immigration cases with legal, and managing the performance evaluation process.

How you will contribute

• Own employee onboarding - run the pre-start experience from offer paperwork and I-9 verification through equipment, workspace, and a first week that gets people productive fast and confirms they made the right call.
• Administer benefits - manage medical, dental, vision, 401(k), and leave programs, act as the first point of contact when someone has a claim problem, and run open enrollment with our broker.
• Own the HRIS and people data - keep the system as a genuine source of truth, build the headcount, attrition, and comp reporting leadership needs, and automate recurring work so it doesn't scale linearly with the team.
• Keep us compliant as we scale - maintain handbooks, policies, and postings across NY, CA, and wherever we go next, and partner with counsel on employment matters with good instincts for when to escalate.
• Own immigration - manage visa and green card cases end to end with outside immigration counsel, from H-1B and O-1 filings through transfers, extensions, and permanent residency
• Drive the performance evaluation process - sharpen rubrics with team leaders, standardize processes across teams, and help employees grow

Qualifications

• 4+ years in people operations or as an HR generalist, including time at a company under 100 people where you built the process rather than inherited it
• Direct ownership of payroll and benefits - you've run the cycle yourself and untangled the messes, not just overseen a vendor doing it
• Fluency with a modern HRIS - you've implemented or meaningfully rebuilt one, and you have opinions about what good looks like
• Working knowledge of employment law and multi-state compliance - enough to keep us clean day to day and sharp instincts for when to call a lawyer
• Experience managing immigration cases - you've worked alongside outside counsel on employment-based visas and understand what the process demands of both the company and the person going through it
• High operational horsepower - you move fast, manage many threads without dropping them, and instinctively build for scale the second time you do something
• Discretion - you'll hold comp data, medical information, and hard conversations, and none of it goes anywhere

Benefits & Perks Include:

• 100% of the monthly premiums covered with Aetna medical vision, and dental insurance for you and your dependents
• 401(k) Retirement Plan
• Unlimited PTO
• Lunch every day from local restaurants via Sharebite
• Relocation support provided

The base salary range for this position is $100,000 - $190,000 yr. However, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. In addition to base salary, we also offer competitive equity and benefits packages.

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Please note that any offer for employment may be conditioned on authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export control laws and regulations without sponsorship for an export license.