Senior People Operations Specialist

About A1M

A1M Solutions is a woman-owned small business driven by the aspiration to provide value to our customers, employees, partners, and community while remaining aligned to our guiding principles of foundational values, deliberate focus, and empathetic connection.

A1M’s mission is to preserve and improve government healthcare programs that are lifelines for underserved people in the United States, including people in poverty, elderly people, members of ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, and refugees. We look for projects with nation-wide impact at the intersection of policy, data, and user experience design.

Besides building useful and usable digital services, A1M helps teams improve their agile, user-centered design practices – or helps them get started. Our goal is not just to build sustainable public services, but also to leave our teaming partners and customers more skilled and more confident in the future.

Business Services at A1M

Business Services is the operational backbone of our organization, enabling teams to work efficiently, securely, and effectively across every stage of the employee and business lifecycle. Our practice area brings together expertise in People Operations (HR support), Finance, Security & IT Support, Contracts, Legal, and Talent Management to deliver the systems, processes, and support that keep the business running smoothly. Business Services works closely with managers and leadership to drive operational excellence, manage risk, support growth, and create a strong employee experience.

About this role

People Operations is central to a healthy workplace. As a Senior People Operations Specialist, your goal is ensuring that employees have a positive experience with A1M as a mission-driven, remote-first company. You support employees in a human-centered way, ensuring that both their needs, and business needs are met consistently. As part of our ongoing commitment to excellence, you will bring a proactive approach to identifying areas for improvement and executing them. While you’re comfortable collaborating closely with company leadership, you’re also capable of working independently. Along with strong communication skills and an eye for details, you bring initiative, curiosity, and a commitment to supporting A1M’s mission by serving our team.

Skills and responsibilities

Technical Capabilities

Remain up to date on evolving Federal, State and local labor laws, advise Leadership on compliance, and build compliant workflows while reviewing and improving others’ documentation.

Oversee benefit administration, facilitate annual open enrollment, audit data, evaluate vendors, and optimize processes through automation or other improvements.

Advise People Managers on navigating complex employer issues, ensure consistent policy application, create templates and guides, and review documentation quality. Shape organization-wide strategies that nurture a culture of open communication and mutual support.

Lead and optimize the end-to-end employee experience lifecycle—ensuring that onboarding and offboarding processes are consistent, equitable, and aligned with organizational culture and goals.

Serve as the functional owner for HR technology platforms (e.g. ADP, Employee Navigator, and BambooHR), customize platforms to align with A1M’s HR workflows and processes, manage change implementation, recommend process enhancements, and advise staff on proper system usage.

Communication and Collaboration

Builds consistent communication between people, teams/projects, and A1M and clients in ways that prevent and break down silos, enabling new opportunities for improved delivery.

Partners effectively with teammates, team leads, government stakeholders, etc. to ensure a cohesive, compliant approach to people operations matters as required.

Proactively address (and where possible, mitigate) risks and conflicts within the team and clients, help identify approaches, and take action – manage up (understanding timing, context and other pressures, etc.) and escalate when appropriate.

Evaluate your own skills and deliverables, and proactively seek learning opportunities to continuously improve.

Cross-Domain Understanding

Initiate and drive HR-related projects that require close collaboration with other practice areas, such as partnering with Delivery leads on staffing plans, or working with Finance on compensation and benefits budgeting

Coach and mentor people managers across every discipline at A1M, helping engineers, designers, analysts, and other non-HR leads build stronger people-management skills

Proactively surfacing policy guidance, compliance updates, or process changes before they become urgent

Government Acumen

Stay current on federal contractor compliance obligations and proactively flag policy or regulatory changes that affect A1M's obligations as a government contractor

Understand the operational realities of A1M's government clients well enough to support staffing decisions, employee transitions, and workforce planning that align with client and contract needs

Represent A1M's People Ops function credibly in situations involving government client staffing requirements or compliance inquiries, including sensitive or challenging conversations

Qualifications

8+ years of progressive People Operations / HR generalist experience

Your resume should demonstrate

Broad HR generalist experience across employee relations, benefits administration, employment compliance, HR systems, and the employee lifecycle.

Strong working knowledge of federal and multi-state employment laws, with demonstrated experience interpreting requirements, assessing risks, and developing compliant policies and practices.

Experience advising leadership and people managers on complex or sensitive employee matters, applying sound judgment, discretion, and a balanced understanding of employee and organizational needs.

Experience developing manager resources, training programs, or other initiatives that strengthen organizational people-management capabilities.

Demonstrated ability to independently manage HR operations, prioritize competing demands, anticipate challenges, and resolve problems with minimal oversight.

Experience evaluating, developing, and improving HR policies, workflows, and systems to increase efficiency, consistency, compliance, and the employee experience.

Hands-on experience administering employee benefits, managing open enrollment, coordinating with vendors, and ensuring data accuracy.

Proficiency administering HR information systems (such as ADP, Employee Navigator, and BambooHR), including system configuration, process automation, reporting, and data management.

Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex and/or sensitive HR matters clearly, provide practical guidance, and navigate difficult conversations.

Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships, collaborate across organizational functions, and support managers with varying levels of people-management experience.

Experience supporting HR operations in a small or mid-sized organization, with the adaptability to balance strategic initiatives and day-to-day operational responsibilities.

Preferred

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Professional HR certification (SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR).

Experience supporting a geographically distributed, remote-first workforce.

Experience working in a federal government contracting environment, including familiarity with contractor-specific employment compliance, labor categories, and workforce planning.

Applicant requirements

Our contracts require employees to work from the United States. That includes all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and all US territories.

Due to tax reasons, A1M employees cannot reside in New York state.

You must be authorized to work in the United States for any employer, without sponsorship.

Our employees work across all time zones which will require flexibility in your working hours. We do offer flexibility for non-work-related life responsibilities during the day.

Active participation in virtual meetings, including being on camera, is an essential function that helps strengthen trust and open communication. Employees who are unable to meet this expectation due to a disability, medical condition, religious practice, or other protected reason may request reasonable accommodations by contacting HR.

This position will require travel to Chico, CA once a quarter (four times a year).

Compensation and benefits

This is a fully remote full-time, permanent position. The salary range for this role is $95,000 – $125,000.

A1M offers a benefits package that includes:

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Life insurance, short-term disability, and optional voluntary benefits

401(k) retirement benefits with employer matching

Four weeks of paid time off, seven company holidays, two personal days, and your birthday off

Paid volunteer time

Wellness reimbursements

Budgets to support training, development, travel, and office supply needs

Donations to a nonprofit of your choice upon hire and a few times throughout each year

Interview process

We typically have four rounds of conversations to help ensure every employee we hire is the right addition for us and that we’re the right fit for them. Each interview is about 45–60 minutes long.

1. A1M Overview - We like to start off by getting to know more about you, how you work, what you are looking for in your next role, and what you’re passionate about. This is your opportunity to ask questions and get a feel for us as A1M. We’ll talk about our mission and vision, and what we hope to accomplish through the business.
2. HR Skills Assessment - If our work at A1M broadly matches what you’re looking for, we’ll set up time to get into the nitty-gritty of your HR skills. Please be prepared to speak about your HR work.
3. Values Interview - After the technical assessment, we’ll schedule a conversation focused on A1M’s core values. This interview helps us understand how you approach your work, collaborate with others, and align with the way we operate as an organization, including areas like impact, collaboration, relationship management, curiosity, and active listening.
4. Offer - At this point, you’ve made it! You'll meet with our leadership to go over the offer letter and have a chance to ask any remaining questions.

Equal employment opportunity

A1M Solutions is building a culturally diverse and pluralistic organization committed to working in a multicultural environment where differences are valued and respected. Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

A1M Solutions is an equal-opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.

As a federal contractor and subcontractor, we certify that we do not operate any programs that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.

EEOC: Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal - Optimized for Screen Readers