Head of People

Rainmaker is pioneering a modern cloud seeding system to mitigate water scarcity and inclement weather. We develop and incorporate radar and satellite validation, weather-resistant UAS, weather modeling, and novel sensors and dispersions into an effective precipitation enhancement solution. 

Rainmaker is a high-performance research, engineering, and operations company. Our work requires scientific rigor, technical excellence, disciplined execution, and strong cross-functional communication across the cross-functional teams.

We are hiring a Head of People to build the people infrastructure that allows Rainmaker to scale with clarity, accountability, and high standards.

This role will own the company’s People operating system: organizational design, workforce planning, manager effectiveness, performance management, compensation, HR operations, employee relations, compliance, onboarding, people analytics, and scalable people processes. The Head of People will partner closely with the executive team to ensure that Rainmaker’s structure, management systems, and culture evolve as the company grows.

Rainmaker is still defining many of its operating norms, management systems, and people processes. The right person will be able to create practical infrastructure without adding unnecessary bureaucracy. They should be equally comfortable advising the CEO on organization design, coaching managers through difficult people issues, building compensation and performance systems, and ensuring the company has clean, compliant, scalable HR operations.

What You'll Do

Build Rainmaker’s People operating system

You will define and implement the core systems that help Rainmaker scale: performance management, manager expectations, feedback norms, onboarding, compensation, employee communications, team operating documents, talent reviews, HR infrastructure, and leadership operating cadences.

The goal is to make Rainmaker clearer, faster, more accountable, and more consistent as the company grows.

Partner with the executive team on organization design

You will help leadership make clear decisions about structure, reporting lines, role scope, leadership gaps, management capacity, and workforce planning.

Build scalable HR infrastructure

You will own the systems and processes that allow Rainmaker to operate professionally and compliantly as it grows. This includes HRIS, employee records, onboarding and offboarding, employment documentation, benefits administration, workplace policies, compliance, employment practices, and vendor management.

You should know how to build durable systems, work effectively with counsel and external partners, and ensure that People operations are clean, reliable, and scalable.

Serve as a strategic HRBP to leaders and managers

You will partner directly with executives and managers on team health, performance issues, communication gaps, role clarity, organizational risks, employee relations, and manager effectiveness.

You will help managers become better communicators, planners, feedback-givers, interviewers, and developers of talent.

Design and run performance management

You will establish clear performance expectations, feedback cycles, promotion criteria, improvement processes, and talent review mechanisms.

Rainmaker needs a system that supports high standards without creating corporate theater. The process should help managers make better decisions, employees understand what great looks like, and leadership identify talent risks early.

Own compensation, leveling, and rewards infrastructure

You will design and maintain compensation structures, equity frameworks, leveling, promotion practices, and benefits programs that are competitive, financially responsible, and aligned with Rainmaker’s stage.

You will partner with Finance and leadership to ensure compensation decisions are consistent, explainable, and tied to role scope, performance, market data, and company planning.

Strengthen Rainmaker’s culture as the company scales

You will help translate Rainmaker’s culture into concrete operating practices. This includes clarity of communication, diligent planning, servant leadership, technical rigor, accountability, professionalism, and strong cross-functional collaboration.

You will help ensure that culture is not just stated in values, but reinforced through hiring, onboarding, manager expectations, performance management, communication norms, and leadership behavior.

Required Qualifications

Significant experience leading People, HRBP, or People Operations in a high-growth company, with a track record of building scalable people infrastructure rather than simply maintaining mature systems.
Strong executive partnership and organizational design experience, including advising CEOs, founders, or senior leaders on team structure, role clarity, management capacity, workforce planning, and people-related risks.
Demonstrated ability to build practical systems for performance management, manager effectiveness, feedback, onboarding, employee relations, and talent reviews in a fast-moving environment.
Working knowledge of compensation, leveling, equity, benefits, HR systems, employment documentation, and compliance, with the judgment to build reliable processes and use external counsel or vendors effectively when needed.
Exceptional communication, judgment, and follow-through, with the ability to earn trust across technical, scientific, operational, and executive teams while creating structure without unnecessary bureaucracy.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience supporting technical, scientific, aerospace, robotics, aviation, defense, climate, deep tech, biotech, hard tech, or similarly complex multidisciplinary organizations.
Experience scaling a company through meaningful headcount growth, especially from an early-stage or founder-led environment into a more structured operating company.
Experience managing or partnering closely with a Talent/Recruiting function, including connecting hiring plans to workforce planning, compensation, onboarding, manager readiness, and company priorities.
Experience designing or implementing HRIS, performance management, compensation, people analytics, or employee lifecycle systems appropriate for a scaling organization.
Experience building manager capability and leadership operating rhythms, including manager training, engagement processes, communication norms, performance calibration, and cross-functional alignment.