Modal

People Operations Generalist at Modal (New York, NY)

Modal· New York, NY·

Role details

Work type
Onsite
Employment
Full-Time

Job description

ABOUT US

AI needs a new infrastructure layer. We're building it at Modal.

Every era of computing brought new workloads that previous infrastructure couldn't support: mainframes, databases, and the cloud. Each time, the company that rebuilt the layer underneath defined the decade. AI is no different, except it touches everything instead of one slice, and the window to build the layer underneath it is open right now.

Our customers include category-defining companies like Lovable modal.com/lovable-case-study, Ramp modal.com Cognition, DoorDash, and Suno. They rely on Modal for instant GPU access, sub-second container starts, and native storage, so it's simple to serve low-latency inference, fine-tune models, and access production-ready sandboxes at scale.

We recently raised a $355M Series C modal.com/modal-series-c at a $4.65B valuation, led by General Catalyst and Redpoint Ventures. We've crossed $300M+ ARR and grown fivefold since September.

Our team includes creators of popular open-source projects (e.g.,Seaborn github.com/seaborn,Luigi github.com/luigi), academic researchers, international olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering and product leaders with decades of experience.

THE ROLE

We're looking for a People Operations Generalist to join our growing People team. You'll touch the employee lifecycle end-to-end — from offer acceptance through offboarding — while helping to build the processes and documentation that let our People function scale with the business.

This is a great fit for a highly organized, systems-oriented people person who thrives in a fast-paced environment and wants to build operational foundations, not just maintain them.

What you’ll do

  • Own and continuously improve the new hire onboarding experience, ensuring employees are set up for success and internal tasks are tracked and completed on time.
  • Serve as a first point of contact for employee questions across the full HR spectrum, triaging and routing more complex issues to the right People team member or external partner.
  • Maintain and improve self-service resources (FAQs, Notion pages, etc.) so employees can find what they need quickly — and always feel supported even when no one's in the room.
  • Support rollouts of new People programs and policies, including communication planning, manager enablement, and documentation.
  • Help bring employee experience programs and events to life, from team offsites to milestone recognition, that reinforce culture and make people feel valued.
  • Process employee changes (promotions, equity refreshes) accurately and on time, including preparing updated employment letters and maintaining compliant employee files.

REQUIREMENTS

  • 2+ years of People Operations experience, preferably at a high-growth startup.
  • Demonstrated ability to build and document HR processes from the ground up, not just execute existing ones.
  • Strong written communication: you write clearly, keep things simple, and know your audience.
  • Experience managing employee data with accuracy and discretion.
  • Comfortable handling competing priorities without losing track of the details.

Why work at Modal

  • Culture and team: Founded by engineers who created open‑source tools (Seaborn, Luigi); team includes academic researchers, olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering leaders. Flat, high‑trust environment.
  • Location / flexibility: Offices in New York, Stockholm, and San Francisco; likely hybrid/remote‑friendly (many roles list multiple locations).
  • Compensation and growth: Transparent salary culture (as highlighted in 2026 profile); strong growth trajectory backed by $466M in funding and a $4.65B valuation.
  • Perks: $30/month free compute for personal projects (customer benefit, likely similar for employees); focus on developer experience and “magic.”

Application questions