# People Lead at River AI

- Company: River AI
- What the company does: Develop frontier language models and agents. Training, reinforcement learning, and inference in one system, on River Cloud or your own GPU cluster. Backed by General Catalyst.
- Company website: https://river.ai/
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Senior
- Location: Palo Alto, CA
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $200K to $380K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-09-19
- Apply by: 2026-11-03
- Apply: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/riverai/jobs/4412267009
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/river-ai-people-lead/

## About the role

We are hiring River AI’s first People Lead to own the human resources function and the related systems that keep the company running: HR, payroll, benefits, insurance, and operations. You'll set them up, run them day to day, and keep improving them as we grow. The role has unusual reach. You will shape nearly everyone's experience here, from a new hire's first day to the environment every employee works in, and you will be trusted with the judgment calls that come with that.

## What they're looking for

- You have at least 7 years of experience in HR and have run HR/People operations at a startup or scale-up
- You know HR platforms like Rippling (required)
- You handle sensitive situations and information discreetly and build trust across the company
- You are genuinely enthusiastic about technology and AI, with a habit of finding tools that make work faster and better
- You communicate clearly in writing and in person
- You have strong organizational judgment: you can hold many small threads at once and know which one matters most right now

Tags: Staff