Sr. Director, HR Business Partner — R&D

Department: People

Build the people strategy behind Klaviyo's AI-first R&D engine.

Klaviyo is becoming an AI-first company - not as positioning, but as a fundamental shift in how we operate, hire, and build. Our R&D organization is at the center of that transformation. Engineering, Product, Design, Data Science, Security, and IT are all being reshaped by it - and, pushing the company forward on our journey.

We need an HR leader who can sit at the table with our CPO, CTO, and CIO - not as just their HR partner, but as a genuine strategic partner who is helping drive their business into our next phase of growth. Someone who can navigate the tension between moving fast and building something that lasts. Someone who's comfortable challenging a senior leader on org design at 9am and coaching a first-time people leader at 2pm.

This is not a typical HR partnership role. It's a mandate to build.

What You'll Do

Partner at the top.

You'll be the primary HRBP for our R&D organization - directly supporting VP+ leaders including the CPO, CTO, and CIO. That means candid advice, not polished answers. You'll help them think through the hardest people questions: how to structure growing teams, where talent risk is hiding, and when a leadership problem is actually an org design problem (or vice versa).

Shape how R&D runs as AI changes everything.

AI isn't coming to Klaviyo's R&D org - it's already here. You'll partner with leaders and teams to navigate what that actually means: redesigning roles, rethinking team structures, and building the skills that let people work alongside AI rather than behind it. 

Drive talent strategy, not just talent process.

You'll translate business priorities into people strategies - org design, succession planning, hiring strategy, and leadership development - that hold up as the company scales. You know the difference between a process that creates clarity and one that just creates paperwork.

Lead with data.

You'll use advanced people analytics and data signaling tools to spot trends before they become problems, make the case for investment, and measure whether the things we're doing are actually working.

Lead and develop an HRBP team.

You'll build and coach a team of HRBPs supporting R&D - setting a high bar, modeling what great HRBP work looks like, and creating the conditions for them to do their best work. 

Connect the dots across the People function.

You'll work closely with the Head of HRBP and Talent Development to shape how the broader HRBP team operates - building efficient / automated processes, leading cross-functional projects (performance calibration, org design, career architecture), and maintaining strong partnerships with close partners such as TA, People Ops, Total Rewards, and Employment Legal.

What Success Looks Like

• R&D leaders treat you as a trusted advisor - not because you're available, but because your perspective is worth seeking out.
• You've built a team of HRBPs who are raising the bar on what strategic partnership looks like.
• Org design, succession, and talent decisions are grounded in data and built around a clear point of view.
• Your fingerprints are on how R&D has evolved through AI transformation - the structures, the capabilities, the culture.
• People Leaders and experts across R&D report a measurably better partnership experience as we evolve our people strategy.

What You Bring

Non-Negotiables:

• 15-20+ years of HRBP or related HR experience, with meaningful time supporting R&D, Engineering, or Product organizations in high-growth tech.
• 5+ years leading and developing HR teams - you know what great coaching looks like, and you practice it.
• A proven track record partnering with senior leaders, including the C-suite, on high-stakes decisions with wide and long-ranging impact.
• Experience guiding organizations through real change - not just process improvement, but structural and strategic transformation.
• Deep expertise on org design, performance management, and leadership development - and the data literacy to back them up.
• The judgment to know when to push back and when to get out of the way.

Strong signals:

• You've been inside a company during a major strategic pivot - and you helped shape how the people side of that went.
• You've worked in an environment where AI is changing the nature of the work itself, not just the tools used to do it.
• You operate with urgency. You don't need consensus to move.
• You're comfortable in ambiguity and know how to create clarity for the people around you without pretending certainty you don't have.