--- title: 'Head of People at 10a Labs' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-people-10a-labs-remote-dnaky4g0xbrm' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-20' --- # Head of People at 10a Labs - **Company:** 10a Labs - **Location:** Remote - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-09-24 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-20 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/10alabs/jobs/4420458009 ## Job description About 10a Labs: 10a Labs is the safety and threat-intelligence layer trusted by frontier AI labs, AI unicorns, Fortune 10 companies, and leading global technology platforms. Our adversarial red teaming, model evaluations, and intelligence collection enable engineering, safety, and security teams to stay ahead of evolving threats and deploy AI systems safely. Location & Travel Expectations We are primarily seeking candidates based in the Washington, DC, New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, and Denver metropolitan areas. Candidates hired in these locations will be expected to work from a 10a Labs office at least two days per week. All new hires will participate in in-person onboarding in Washington, DC, New York City, or San Francisco during their first week. Occasional travel may also be required for interviews, in-person meetings, and other business needs. Head of People ## About the Role We are seeking an experienced Head of People to build and lead the people function at 10a Labs. This leader will own the full employee lifecycle while ensuring the company scales with strong operational rigor, compliant HR practices, and a high-performance culture. Partnering closely with leadership, Legal, Finance, Recruiting, Operations, and other teams, you will build the policies, processes, and people programs that support a rapidly growing organization. In This Role, You Will - Own People Operations and Human Resources functions across the organization. - Develop scalable HR policies, processes, and internal documentation that support company growth. - Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws while partnering closely with Legal on employment matters, contracts, and investigations. - Lead employee relations, workplace investigations, conflict resolution, and performance management. - Design and manage performance review programs, manager enablement, and people metrics to drive organizational effectiveness. - Own onboarding, offboarding, employee records, HRIS, payroll coordination, and benefits administration. - Maintain the employee handbook, company policies, and employment documentation. - Partner with Recruiting to ensure compliant hiring practices and an exceptional new hire experience. - Coordinate employment-based immigration processes with outside counsel. - Partner with Finance on compensation benchmarking, promotions, leveling, and equity administration. - Partner with Compliance to ensure personnel-related security, confidentiality, onboarding, and access control requirements are met. - Coach managers and executives on organizational design, leadership development, employee relations, and change management. - Drive strategic People initiatives that enable the company to scale effectively. ## Requirements - Bachelor's degree (or equivalent experience) in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, or a related field; advanced degree or HR certification preferred. - 10+ years of progressive Human Resources or People Operations experience, with demonstrated ownership of core HR functions including employee relations, performance management, employment compliance, benefits, and HR operations. - Hands-on experience overseeing core HR operations, including benefits administration, leave management, payroll coordination, employee records, onboarding/offboarding, HRIS administration, and required employment documentation. - Experience building or scaling People Operations within a high-growth technology company. - Significant hands-on experience managing complex employee relations matters, including performance issues, terminations, workplace complaints, investigations, and conflict resolution. - Deep knowledge of U.S. employment law, compliance, employee relations, and HR best practices. - Experience partnering with Legal on employment matters and organizational compliance. - Experience with employment-based immigration processes. - Experience designing and administering company-wide performance management programs, including performance reviews, manager guidance, performance improvement, and promotion processes. - Experience developing or administering compensation and leveling frameworks, including benchmarking, salary decisions, promotions, and equity programs. - Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills. - Ability to operate effectively in fast-paced, high-growth environments. ## Preferred Qualifications - Experience supporting rapidly scaling organizations. - Experience with distributed or multi-state workforces. - Experience setting up People Operations outside of the U.S. - Familiarity with HRIS platforms such as Rippling, BambooHR, Workday, or similar. - SHRM-SCP, SPHR, or equivalent certification preferred. Compensation & Benefits: - Salary Range: $150K–$190K, depending on experience and location - Bonus: Performance-based annual bonus - Professional Development: Support for conferences, continuing education, or leadership training - Work Environment: Fully remote, U.S.-based - Health Benefits: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage - Time Off: Generous PTO and paid holiday schedule - Retirement: 401(k) plan ## About 10a Labs ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: 10a Labs is an applied research and technology company providing AI security, threat intelligence, and independent safety evaluations for frontier AI models and major technology platforms. - **Entity Type**: Private (Privately Held) - **Headquarters**: Washington, D.C., United States - **Founded**: 2021 - **Founders**: Bobby McKenzie (Founder & CEO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: AI Security & Safety, Threat Intelligence, Research Services - **Target customers**: Frontier AI labs, AI unicorns, Fortune 10 companies, and leading global technology platforms (B2B, Enterprise) - **Mission or purpose statement**: "The safety and threat-intelligence layer trusted by frontier AI labs... enabling engineering, safety, and security teams to stay ahead of evolving threats and deploy AI systems safely." ## Products & Services - **Model Evaluations & Red Teaming**: Independent safety evaluations for frontier AI models, built for EU AI Act compliance and regulatory readiness. Includes scaled red teaming technology stress-testing generative and agentic AI systems against high-priority threats (CBRNE, Cyber Harms, Data Exfiltration, Model Distillation, Terrorism, Fraud, and more). - **Threat Intelligence (Scout)**: Real-time monitoring for emerging threats to frontier AI systems, with proprietary threat intelligence delivered via API. Covers malicious tooling, novel abuse patterns, unauthorized access pathways, credential resale, jailbreaks, and dark web monitoring. - **Model Defense & Integrity (Spartan)**: Advanced R&D in agentic AI systems, ML and RL model-distillation risks, and multimodal adversarial defenses to strengthen AI security and robustness. - **Data Center Risk Analysis**: Assessment of risks to data centers stemming from geopolitical, regulatory, jurisdictional, and operational challenges. - **Classification System**: A proprietary production ML pipeline with datasets and taxonomies informed by deep subject-matter expertise to detect emerging abuse patterns across text and other modalities. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available - **Key Metric**: Total headcount of approximately 36 employees (as of mid-2025), with strong growth (+172.2% year-over-year). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Clients include frontier AI labs, AI unicorns, Fortune 10 companies, and leading global technology platforms. Alumni have gone on to OpenAI, Microsoft, Verizon, and other tech leaders. Talent sourced from organizations like the U.S. Department of State, Columbia SIPA, and the United Nations University. - **Growth Signals**: Rapid headcount growth (+172.2% YoY), 32 active job postings in mid-2025, quarterly job posting growth of +166.7% and yearly growth of +3100.0%, indicating aggressive expansion across multiple departments (Research, Engineering, Threat Investigation, Data, Operations). ## Competitive Advantages - **Specialized Focus**: A rare company fully dedicated to AI safety, security, and threat intelligence for frontier models, serving as an independent, expert safety layer. - **Deep Expertise**: Combines subject-matter expertise (e.g., CBRNE, cyber, terrorism) with proprietary ML pipelines and red teaming technology. - **Trusted Client Base**: Serves the most advanced AI labs and largest tech platforms, providing a unique vantage point on emerging threats. - **Regulatory Readiness**: Built to help clients comply with frameworks like the EU AI Act, positioning them as a critical partner in the evolving regulatory landscape. ## Strategic Focus - **Scaling the Team**: Aggressively hiring across engineering, research, threat investigation, and operations to expand capacity. - **Advancing R&D**: Deepening research into agentic AI risks, model distillation, and multimodal adversarial defenses. - **Global Expansion**: Posting roles in multiple regions (US, UK, Australia, France), indicating international growth. - **Product Development**: Continuing to build out their suite of safety, intelligence, and evaluation products (Scout, Spartan, Classification System). ## Why Work Here - **High-Impact Mission**: Work directly on ensuring the safe deployment of the world's most advanced AI systems, addressing critical security and societal risks. - **Compelling Compensation**: Salary ranges for technical roles are highly competitive (e.g., $255K–$405K + Equity for exceptional engineers, per a recent hiring post). - **Rapid Growth Environment**: Join a company in a strong growth phase (+172% headcount growth), offering significant opportunities for impact and career advancement. - **On-Site Collaborative Culture**: While some roles are remote, many positions are in-office (Washington D.C., San Francisco, London), emphasizing a collaborative, hands-on work environment. - **Strong Talent Network**: Surrounded by colleagues from top institutions and government agencies (State Department, UN, Columbia SIPA, Michigan State), fostering a culture of expertise and mission-driven work. - **Comprehensive Roles**: Opportunities span from hands-on red teaming and software engineering to research and operations, appealing to a wide range of skills and career paths. ## Sources 1. [10alabs.com](https://10alabs.com/) 2. [Built In - 10a Labs](https://builtin.com/company/10a-labs) 3. [LinkedIn - 10a Labs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/10a-labs) 4. [Greenhouse - 10a Labs Jobs](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/10alabs) ## Other roles at 10a Labs - [Junior Imminent Risk (Law Enforcement) Specialist – Evening Shift](https://feeny.ai/job/junior-imminent-risk-law-enforcement-specialist-evening-shift-10a-labs-sp87fa62h2fx) — Washington, DC - [Senior Imminent Risk (Law Enforcement) Specialist – Evening Shift](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-imminent-risk-law-enforcement-specialist-evening-shift-10a-labs-tqbgysye7zwj) — Washington, DC - [Principal Imminent Risk (Law Enforcement) Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-imminent-risk-law-enforcement-specialist-10a-labs-washington-7bhpn3h99w4b) — Washington, DC - [Technical Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-recruiter-10a-labs-remote-qh27k3ceaq5p) - [Trust & Safety Investigator](https://feeny.ai/job/trust-safety-investigator-10a-labs-remote-419ndj65ygda) - [Biosecurity Investigator](https://feeny.ai/job/biosecurity-investigator-10a-labs-remote-x8k7wrgxhsp6) - [Cybersecurity Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/cybersecurity-engineer-10a-labs-remote-6tw6ebfp1kh6) - [Head of Finance](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-finance-10a-labs-remote-ha9bssj2nhaa) - [Principal Cyber Investigator](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-cyber-investigator-10a-labs-washington-xwxvx3tew556) — Washington, DC - [Junior Cyber Investigator](https://feeny.ai/job/junior-cyber-investigator-10a-labs-washington-tznv7eqs48aj) — Washington, DC