People Lead

We’re hiring a People Lead to join our team in Aarhus ASAP. You’ll become part of an ambitious, fast-growing AI startup where you’ll take full ownership of our people function and help build the organisational foundation that enables Cernel to scale from early stage and beyond. We’re VC-backed, growing fast, and offering a role that is highly impactful, hands-on, and deeply embedded in the leadership team.

Join us on our growth journey

At Cernel, we’re bringing the AI revolution to ecommerce by building the intelligent backbone behind every item sold online. We make ecommerce teams work smarter, faster, and with amplified abilities across the entire value chain – starting with what lies at the core: product data.

We’re scaling rapidly, and our success depends on our ability to attract, onboard, and support exceptional people while maintaining a strong culture and high execution velocity. That’s where you come in.

As People Lead, you report and work closely with the Chief of Staff. We have in-house knowledge on how to scale the people function - and therefore, you will not be alone. However, we need you to lead, build, and drive the very prioritized agenda within people and culture.

Responsibilities and daily work

• Own and drive end-to-end hiring execution across roles and teams – from role definition to signed contracts

• Build and maintain a scalable human- but also AI-driven recruiting engine (ATS, assessment, attraction, candidate experience)

• Own onboarding and ensure new hires become productive, aligned, and engaged quickly

• Own and implement HRIS system

• Ensure ongoing utilization of data-tracking of the recruitment pipeline funnel

• Handle contracts, HR operations, payroll coordination and people systems

• Help shape and operationalise culture, office and internal rituals

• Support organisational scaling from ~15 to 40+ employees without losing clarity or quality

• Work closely with the Chief of Staff and leadership team on people-related priorities and decisions

Bonus to have experience with LinkedIn software, Ashby, HiBob, Firstmind, TalentXplatform, Notion and G-suite This is a hands-on role where you both build and run the function at the very same time. We are working strategically with personality assessments, hence, also a bonus if you have experience doing that.

Who you are and requirements

• 3–7+ years of experience within People / HR / Talent in startups or scaleups

• Proven experience owning hiring execution end-to-end

• Comfortable operating without playbooks – you build them as you go

• Highly structured, pragmatic, and execution-oriented

• People person - strong communicator with high integrity and trustworthiness

• Thrive in environments with autonomy, responsibility, and high expectations

• Able to balance people care with business needs and pace

• Fluent in English and Danish is a requirement

Who we are

Cernel is building the next generation of ecommerce infrastructure with AI-powered agents that automate complex tasks and connect workflows across systems. We’re developing an advanced agent framework that analyses data, makes decisions, and drives performance – giving ecommerce teams better results, higher conversions, and more time for creative work.

We are currently a team of 17 people working from our brand new HQ at Frederiksbjerg, Aarhus. We are ambitious, caring, and collaborative. We work hard, move fast, and genuinely care about building both a great product and a great organisation.

Next steps and how to apply

The process for the role will look as follows:

• Apply and share information

• Completion of talent assessment

• 60-minute onsite interview in Aarhus

• Meet stakeholders