People Enablement Partner

We're on a mission to make real estate transactions smarter, faster, and friction-free.

Real estate is the world's largest asset class, yet the legal processes and tools behind it remain slow, manual, and underinvested. Lawyers must review dense documents line by line and piece together information across silos, all while clients demand faster, more transparent due diligence.

That's where we come in. Orbital Copilot is the AI assistant built exclusively for commercial real estate law. Developed with former practicing real estate lawyers, it accelerates complex due diligence by up to 70% while delivering legal-grade precision.

We're trusted by leading firms like Goodwin and BCLP to remove the busywork so legal teams can focus on what they do best: applying sharp legal judgment, delivering standout client service, and getting deals over the line faster.

Working at Orbital means joining a team that's reimagining how real estate transactions get done - moving fast, working collaboratively, and giving people the ownership to make a real impact from day one.

The job, in a nutshell You'll be the first hire in the People function, working alongside and reporting to the newly appointed People Director. As a foundational hire, you'll have real influence over how this function (and your role within it) evolves. We're building a modern People team leaning into an 'Employee Experience as a Product' methodology: designing scalable solutions that support individual growth and business success, not just reactive fixes.

Our operating model is built on three functional engines:

• Efficiency Engine: Creates the operational backbone that keeps workflows smooth, data reliable, and systems scalable
• People Product Engine: Designs fit-for-purpose people solutions that shape how the organisation works
• Manager Success Engine: Enables managers to lead confidently and consistently

These engines work seamlessly together and not in silos; this role sits equally across People Product and Manager Success. In practice, this means that you'll partner with managers to surface insights, then own the design and implementation of people solutions from start to finish. Initially you'll work with managers across all departments and locations (London and New York); as we grow, your Manager Success focus will shift to supporting primarily our Product Engineering teams.

What you'll do

• Partner with managers across the business to diagnose team challenges, surfacing deep insights that will shape our People Product roadmap.
• Enable managers to confidently handle performance, conduct, and team issues through effective coaching, guidance, and accessible resources
• Apply product management principles, such as user research, problem framing, roadmap prioritisation, MVP testing and tracking outcomes, when designing new People processes
• Design and implement scalable People Products that support employees at all stages, create measurable business outcomes, and scale effectively with the business
• Own the People Product lifecycle end-to-end: from identifying the foundational problem and designing the solution, through to successful rollout and adoption
• Identify patterns that signal where new solutions are needed and translate insights into clear, actionable recommendations
• Find ways to measure outcomes that highlight impact and identify where we still need to improve
• Iterate on what you build based on real-world feedback; nothing is set and forget

What you might be working on Our initial 2026 People team priorities give a flavour of the types of challenges you'll help tackle:

• Manager capability: Equipping managers with frameworks and guidance to handle performance, conduct, and team issues at first line
• Onboarding: Designing structured onboarding that accelerates new hire time-to-productivity to support our ambitious growth plans
• Performance enablement: Implementing clear expectations and feedback cycles that scale with team growth

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. There are still foundational layers to build and new challenges that you will play a central role in identifying and prioritising.

Requirements The must-haves

• You have relevant experience in People Partnering and/or People Operations with strength on one side combined with desire to build in the other.
• You have strong understanding of UK employment laws and regulations, exposure or experience with US laws and regulations is a big plus.
• You enjoy working closely with managers as well as building scalable people initiatives and have the ability to transform insights into real business impact.
• You have strong communications and relationship-building skills combined with good judgement and discretion when working with sensitive employee matters and issues.
• You care deeply about employee experience and business impact, and want to find ways to combine these in a meaningful way.
• You thrive in ambiguity where we don't always have all the answers and rewriting People Playbooks excites you.
• You combine strategic thinking with a pragmatic, hands-on approach, operating comfortably across proactive projects whilst building foundational processes.
• You embrace technology and AI, and actively look for ways they can help you and others work smarter.
• You understand the nuances between urgent and important and how to prioritise accordingly.

And a few nice-to-haves

• Experience in fast scaling tech/AI startups
• Transferable skills from another discipline (e.g. product management, operations, analytics) that you're keen to apply in a People context
• Comfort with tools like Hibob, Notion, Slack and the Google ecosystem

Why you'll love it here

• You'll join a startup at an exciting inflection point ahead of a period of high-growth.
• You'll enjoy rethinking how a People team delivers real value through new ways of working and evidence led design.
• You'll have the opportunity to tackle meaningful challenges in a genuinely career-defining role.
• You'll be part of a collaborative, highly ambitious and friendly culture where curiosity and innovation are celebrated.

Why this might not be for you

• You are looking for a conventional HR role; this remit requires passion equal for partnering with managers as well as solving operational challenges, and leaning into opportunities enabled by AI and modern tooling.
• You prefer steady rhythms or high predictability; we are building a new function with big bets and ambitious goals, and the work will stretch your thinking in a supported environment with space to learn and grow.
• You want to follow fully defined processes or you feel uncomfortable with areas that are not yet structured; we are still shaping and rewriting People Playbooks and building foundations for a fast paced AI startup so you need to be comfortable with a level of ambiguity and work-in-progress.

Hiring process This is our planned process for this role, though there may be slight variations where needed.

If you need any reasonable adjustments at any stage, please let us know!

1. Application review: We'll review your CV and application. Due to the high volume of applications, unfortunately, we're not able to provide individual feedback at this stage.
2. Screening video call (60 min): A conversation with Riikka (People Director). She'll share more about Orbital and the role, hear about your background, and ask some questions about your experience. You'll have time to ask her questions too.
3. Take-home task: If the screening call goes well, we'll send you a short, realistic scenario - this shouldn't take you more than an hour. We're interested in how you think, not the "right" answer or a full-fledged process. If you're successful, we'll invite you to the panel discussion. If not, we'll share feedback.
4. Panel discussion (90 min, in person): You'll present your task and we'll dig into it together, followed by further questions about your experience. You'll meet the People Director (again) and one of our Tech Leads at our Farringdon office.
5. Culture interview (30 min): A conversation about values and how we work with some of our team members. A great opportunity for you to learn more about Orbital as well so bring your questions! Usually we try to schedule this on the same day as your Panel discussion, but if that's not possible, we can do this remotely at another time too.
6. Offer

Benefits

• Compensation: We offer a competitive starting salary in the range of £69,000-74,000, depending on experience. We share salary ranges upfront to build trust, reduce bias, and support an inclusive process, even as we continue developing our internal pay structures.
• Flexible Work: We believe in flexibility, but we're also big on in-person collaboration. This role is based in our London office (Farringdon) three days a week, with additional time in as needed for things like all-hands, interviews, or team sessions. It's about being present when it matters, and balancing autonomy with impact.
• Preparing for your future: We match your pension contributions to help you build long-term financial security, and provide ownership in the company through options.
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