People Operations Lead

Orbital is the AI platform for real estate legal work.

Real estate shapes the world around us: our homes, our workplaces and our cultural landmarks. It’s the infrastructure that powers everyday life and is the world's largest asset class. Yet behind every single deal, real estate and legal teams work hard to navigate decades-old complexity; manually connecting documents, hidden obligations, geo-spatial context, and multiple parties into a path forward. We connect the legal and physical record, so that path is clearer than ever before. Our mission is to make real estate transactions faster, clearer, and less manual.

Here, you'll be part of changing how the deals behind the largest asset class get transacted, and will help shape the future of real estate.

A bit about us:

🚀 We’re building at the forefront of AI technology, without losing the deeply human expertise our clients depend on.

🏢 Orbital is built with former practising real estate lawyers and 250+ years of combined legal expertise. We're purpose-built for the complexity of real estate: accelerating due diligence, drafting and negotiation, and deal coordination with legal-grade precision.

💰 We've just raised a $60m Series B, led by Brighton Park Capital, to accelerate our global expansion – $75m raised to date.

🤝 We're trusted by 5,000+ real estate professionals, spanning UK Magic Circle and US Am Law 100 firms, to household names like M&S. Leading firms like BCLP, Orrick, Goodwin, Womble Bond Dickinson and Clifford Chance rely on Orbital to remove the busywork, freeing legal and real estate teams to focus on sharp judgment, standout client service, and closing deals faster.

💡 Working at Orbital means joining a bold, ambitious team, with the trust to take ownership and make a real impact from day one.

People Operations at Orbital is the connective tissue that holds a fast-scaling team together. This role owns the infrastructure: the systems, the data and the operational rhythm that lets everyone else do their best work.

We are not looking for someone to follow processes. We want someone who runs the operation reliably and then makes it smarter. You will have genuine ownership across the employee lifecycle, direct access to senior People and Talent leadership, and the freedom to use modern tooling, including AI, to build better ways of working as you go.

If you take real pride in operational precision, have an eye for where things could work better, and want to be the person who actually fixes them, this role was built for you.

• The People operations engine. Onboarding new joiners into HiBob and connected systems, running UK and US payroll inputs, coordinating benefits administration, managing employee changes and keeping People data accurate and current.

• The detail that matters. Background screening, hard deadlines, transactional employee questions and making sure nothing falls through the gaps.

• Continuous improvement. Once you know the operational landscape, you will configure workflows, improve system setups and lead defined projects, such as a compensation refresh or tooling input on a performance cycle, where your knowledge of the systems makes you the right person to drive them.

• Solid experience in People Operations, HR Operations or People Systems, at a level where you have not just run recurring operational work but improved or built parts of it.

• Hands-on with an HRIS beyond basic use: creating fields, configuring workflows and making the system work better, not just entering data into it.

• Meticulous attention to detail around payroll inputs, employment documentation, screening and sensitive employee data.

• The ability to establish quickly and operate autonomously. You bring proposals, not just questions, and you do not wait to be told where the friction is.

• Comfortable in a scaling environment where not every process is finished yet, and energised rather than unsettled by that.

• HiBob or a comparable HRIS at admin or configuration level.

• UK payroll input experience, UK benefits administration or background screening.

• Having led or contributed to a People systems improvement or process automation project.

• You own it. This is not a support function. The operations run through you, and when something should change, you are the first person we ask.

• It gets more interesting over time. The more you systematise and automate the operational work, the more space opens up for project and systems work. That progression is built into the role, not an optional extra.

• Real autonomy. We hire people we trust and get out of the way. You will have the tools, the access and the mandate to get things done.

• You will be close to the business. Reporting to the People Director, working alongside senior People and Talent leaders at a company that is moving fast and building something worth being part of.

The salary for this role is £65,000-£75,000

🔒 Security is everyone’s responsibility at Orbital. We ask all team members to follow our security policies, complete regular awareness training, and handle sensitive data with care in line with ISO 27001 standards. Spot something unusual? Reporting risks or incidents quickly helps us maintain the strong culture of security and compliance we all depend on.

💡 At Orbital, we’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. We especially welcome applications from people who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. Even if you don’t meet every single requirement, or if the right role isn’t listed yet, we’d still love to hear from you.

💰 This hiring range is a reasonable estimate of the base pay range for this position at the time of posting. Pay is based on several factors, which may include job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and business requirements.

Everyone who works with Orbital goes through background screening before they start. It's part of how we keep Orbital secure, for the people who work here and for the client information we're trusted with.