Senior HR Business Partner — First People Hire

Who We Are

Zefir is building an AI autopilot for home sales in Europe, starting in France: an AI agent runs the entire sale and purchase journey end-to-end, orchestrating local brokers, portals, buyers, and documents.

Backed by over $55 million from top-tier investors like Sequoia Capital, we're committed to accelerating life changes for millions of current and future European homeowners.

🚀 Your Mission

You'll be Zefir's first dedicated People hire, the person who builds our HR function from the ground up, at a moment when it matters most. Your scope spans everything that makes people thrive, perform, and stay: performance management, legal compliance, manager enablement, onboarding, and compensation.

It is a rare opportunity to be the architect of the People function at one of France's most ambitious proptech scale-ups, with direct exposure to founders and a clear path to Head of People as we scale to 200+ FTEs.

What you'll do

• Design and deploy the People infrastructure that scales with our growth: onboarding/offboarding journeys, bi-annual performance review cycles, PIP process, L&D framework

• Own all legal and disciplinary matters: contract terminations, trial period interruptions, litigious situations, CSE relationship, regulatory compliance

• Be the trusted HR partner for all managers across all teams and reduce founders' exposure to people decisions that should be handled at the manager level.

• Prepare and run CSE meetings, manage the social obligations calendar, and build a constructive relationship with employee representatives.

• Ensure smooth and reliable People Ops, owning the relationship with our current outsourced provider: payroll coordination, contract amendments, HRIS (Lucca) accuracy, administrative onboarding. Progressively reduce external dependency via dedicated People Ops scope building, hiring and management.

• Use data and people analytics to track key metrics, identify trends, and proactively recommend actions.

💪 What You Bring

• 5–7 years of HR experience, including at least 2 years in a fast-growing French start-up or scale-up

• Deep expertise in French labour law: you're fully comfortable with PIPs, litigious situations, CSE, and the nuances of French employment contracts.

• A builder's instinct and a do-er spirit: you've designed People processes from scratch, not just executed them.

• Strong ability to build people infrastructure leveraging AI (at ease with MCP, Lovable, AI-augmented workflows, etc.)

• Strong stakeholder management, interpersonal and influence skills

• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and urgency

• Experience with HRIS tooling (Lucca, Payfit or equivalent) and a data-driven approach to People metrics.

• Fluency in French (native or near-native) and professional English.

Benefits

• Competitive salary: You can run your own simulation with our salary calculator.

• BSPCE (Stock Options): Available for everyone, with monthly vesting after year one, over a 4-year period.

• Healthcare plan: Full coverage with Alan for team members, their partners, and children.

• Office in Le Peletier, Paris (9th arrondissement): With flexible remote work options.

• Swile meal card: €11 per worked day.

• Swile mobility card: €42/month to support sustainable transportation (metro, carpooling, biking…).

• Team events: Monthly Mixers to connect and share good times, and quarterly All Hands to celebrate wins across the company.

Our Operating Principles

🏔️ Steep Mountains Are Steep: Setting ambitious goals and working hard to achieve them.

🌊 Ride Reality: Actively seeking challenges and thriving by adapting flexibly to changes.

🏀 Play for the Front of the Jersey: Prioritizing team success over individual recognition.

Application & Process

We welcome applications from anyone, regardless of background, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, or experience. Our team values authenticity and diverse perspectives.

For all roles, our interview process emphasizes hands-on exercises, case studies, or discussions about specific examples of your previous work. We ensure objectives and expectations are clearly communicated at every step.