Role overview

Reporting to the CFO and leading a team of two (HR Generalist (HG) and Office Manager (OM)), the People Lead owns our People function end to end as we scale. Your mission is to build the systems, processes, and culture that let a fast-growing biotech scale-up hire well, operate smoothly, and keep its people engaged and growing. You pair a modern, tech-driven approach to People Ops (HRIS, automation, data) with the judgment to be a trusted partner to managers and leadership. You will shape how it feels to work here, from a candidate’s first interview to a frictionless daily employee experience.

Key responsibilities

1. People operations & systems

• In collaboration with your team, map, optimize, and automate the full employee lifecycle: onboarding, offboarding, internal moves, time and absence management.

• Own our HRIS and People tool ecosystem: select, deploy, and administer tools that make the employee experience seamless.

• Oversee accurate, on-time payroll, directly or via an external provider.

• Own the Compensation, Benefits & Career Frameworks: Evolve and scale our existing salary grid to address current growth needs, while designing and deploying missing structural pillars including career tracks, bonus policies, and stock-based compensation (BSPCE).

• Build and sustain our People dashboards and KPIs (headcount, turnover, labor cost, eNPS, objectives achievement) and turn this data governance into strategic, data-driven recommendations for leadership.

2. Team leadership & talent

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of two: an HR Generalist and an Office Manager.

• Elevate our hiring strategy alongside the HR Generalist: Challenge and scale our recruitment roadmap, optimizing workforce planning, enhancing pipeline quality and candidate experience, and maintaining a high hiring bar to attract top talent.

• Oversee our workplace and environment strategy with the Office Manager: ensure office scalability, safety compliance, and daily operations effectively support a growing scientific and commercial team.

3. Employee experience, culture, performance & engagement

• Design and run the programs that keep people engaged and growing: performance and feedback cycles, the leveling and promotion framework, learning and development, recognition.

• Protect and evolve the culture as the company scales across scientific, technical, and commercial teams.

4. Strategic partnering & org growth

• Act as a trusted advisor to managers on day-to-day people questions, with practical, hands-on solutions.

• Translate business goals into People initiatives: team structuring, workforce planning, leveling.

• Support organizational change with care for both the business and employee wellbeing.

5. Compliance & administration

• Ensure clean, compliant HR administration: employment contracts, amendments, and core legal obligations (gender equality index, CSR reporting, collective bargaining agreement).

• Maintain a healthy social climate and manage the relationship with the CSE (Social and Economic Committee).

• Handle sensitive procedures (terminations, mutual agreements), partnering with external legal counsel for anything complex. Deep legal expertise is not required; sound judgment and knowing when to call counsel is.

Experience

• 4+ years in People Ops/HR, ideally in a scale-up, fast-growing PME, or comparably structured environment.

• A track record of designing and scaling HR processes and systems, not just running them.

• Management experience: you have already led at least a small team, or are ready to step into your first leadership role with support.

• Exposure to a technical, scientific, or deep-tech environment is a bonus; you will support scientists alongside commercial teams.

Hard skills

• Strong People Ops toolkit: HRIS administration, process design, and automation (Zapier, productivity workflows).

• Data-driven: comfortable building and reading People dashboards; Excel and Google Sheets hold no secrets for you.

• Working knowledge of French labor law and payroll mechanics: enough to run a compliant operation and recognize when to bring in external counsel. Deep legal specialization is not expected.

Soft skills

• Pragmatic and solutions-oriented: you turn ambiguity into clear, workable processes.

• Allergic to repetitive work: you automate wherever it makes sense.

• A people person with judgment: managers and employees trust you, and you make complex topics simple.

• Ownership mindset: you own the People function as a core piece of infrastructure designing clear, fair, and sustainable frameworks so the team keeps getting sharper as we scale.

🌍 Why Join Us?

• Gain significant leadership and technical experience in a fast-paced, stimulating environment.

• A flexible schedule that combines remote work options with valuable in-office collaboration.

• Collaborate with talented internal teams and AWS experts

• Take ownership of infrastructure critical to pioneering biotech innovation

🎁 Our benefits :

• Healthcare 100% paid by Phagos

• Swile card (restaurant vouchers)

• RTT

• Wellpass (ex Gymlib) subscription

At Phagos we believe the recruitment process begins from the application. This is why we invite you to take your time and thoughtfully complete our application form. Please submit your application in English.

Step #1 Interview with Adèle, our CTO.

Step #2 Practical Case Study Presentation with Esther, our Office Manager & Hiba, our HR Generalist.

Step #3 Interview with Alex, our CEO.

Team Fit : Last but not least, you will meet 5 members of Phagos, randomly picked for a team fit discussion, in English as our team is international. When possible, this meeting will be held in our office in Suresnes.