Talent Programs Lead

Most companies can't tell you why one person is a Senior and another isn't, or what either one should be paid. We're hiring the person who makes Grove able to answer that — and then builds the programs that make the answer real.

The Pitch

• Grove is rebuilding its leveling guidelines from the ground up. Not adjusting bands — defining what a level actually means, across every function, in a company that looks nothing like it did two years ago. You'll help shape that framework alongside the Director of PX and People Ops leadership, and you'll own getting it out into the company and making it stick.
• We want comp analysis that arrives with the data already attached. Benchmark the role, build the band, model the offer, show your work. Leaders should be able to act on your recommendation without relitigating it.
• We want onboarding and talent management that actually connect. A new hire should know what their level means in week one, and their manager should know what growth into the next one looks like.
• On recruiting: talent acquisition is a small part of this role. You'll run a search when a req opens, and your hiring judgment matters — but reqs are episodic here, and the programs are the job. If you're looking for a full-cycle recruiting seat, this isn't it.
• The honest version: this is a lot of program surface area for one person, held together by judgment and leverage rather than headcount. That's the trade. You get unusual scope, unusual autonomy, and a direct line to decisions that normally sit two levels up. You don't get a team to hand it to.
• If you need the process to already exist before you can work, this will be miserable. If you've spent your career being the person who builds the thing that was missing, this is the seat.

What You'd Actually Do

• Run Grove's compensation analysis (in partnership with Director of People Experience) — benchmark roles against market survey data, build and maintain bands, model offers and internal equity, and bring leaders a recommendation they can act on.
• Help build Grove's leveling framework and own the rollout: train managers, calibrate real roles against it, answer the hard edge cases, and maintain it as the company changes.
• Own onboarding end to end, so a new hire's first ninety days are structured, useful, and consistent no matter which team they land on.
• Administer talent management programs — performance cycles, calibration, career pathing, and development planning — so growth conversations are grounded in the leveling framework instead of vibes. 
• Pick up recruiting when reqs arise — partner with the hiring manager on what the role actually needs, run the search, and hold the bar. A small share of your time, but one where quality is non-negotiable.
• Use AI as a working instrument, not a novelty — comp benchmarking analysis, JD drafting, onboarding content, program reporting, campaign tracking. A one-person program function only works at this scope if you build it that way.

What You'll Own

Compensation Analysis (primary focus). With guidance from the Director of People Experience, you’ll run market benchmarking, band construction and maintenance, offer and internal-equity modeling, and clear recommendations to leaders. You connect leveling to comp so the two stay honest with each other — scope drives the level, the level drives the band, and you can show your work.

Job Architecture & Leveling. A core contributor to Grove's P-track and T-track leveling framework — scope, impact, autonomy, influence, knowledge, leadership — and the owner of how it lands. That means helping write level language that holds up across functions, calibrating real roles against it, training managers to use it, documenting the edge cases, and keeping it current as the company changes.

Onboarding. Design and own the new-hire experience from offer accept through the first ninety days. Consistent, fast, and specific enough that a new hire knows what their level means and what good looks like in their first month.

Talent Management. The Director of People Experience will own the Talent Management strategy but you’ll own the operating cadence of performance and development — review cycles, calibration sessions, career pathing, and manager enablement. Make the leveling framework the spine of these conversations rather than a document nobody opens.

Talent Acquisition (as needed). Run searches when reqs open. Partner with hiring managers on what the role actually needs before it posts, run a structured process, and be the one who says no when a candidate is good but not good enough. Episodic work, held to a high standard.

Standards and influence. Despite the title, this is an individual contributor role with no direct reports. Your influence shows up as the standards you set: the leveling language managers reach for, the comp reasoning leaders trust, the interview bar people hold because you taught it. You'll advise stakeholders across the company and be believed on the strength of the work.

What You Bring

Read this as a portrait, not a checklist.

• 6+ years across HR / People programs and talent acquisition, with real depth in both. Not a recruiter who has been adjacent to HR, and not an HR generalist who has never had to defend a band or a level.
• Compensation fluency. You've worked with market survey data (Radford or equivalent), built or maintained bands, and modeled offers with internal equity in view.
• Leveling and job architecture experience. You've built, shaped, or operationalized a framework — not just applied someone else's. You know the difference between a level definition and a job description, and why blurring them causes problems eighteen months later.
• Program ownership. You've run recurring People programs end to end — onboarding, performance cycles, compliance training — and improved them each time rather than just running them again.
• Recruiting judgment. You can run a search well when one lands, and you know what a high bar looks like and how to assess for it.
• Experience at a company transforming fast. You've worked where the org chart, the strategy, and the priorities all moved in the same quarter, and you built anyway — iterating in public, shipping a v1, improving it, rather than waiting for the conditions to settle.
• Demonstrated AI fluency in day-to-day People work. Analysis, drafting, reporting, workflow building. Comfort with tools like Claude or ChatGPT is expected here, not a bonus.
• Sharp written communication. Much of your influence will be async, in writing, with people who weren't in the room.
• Serious judgment and discretion. You'll see comp data, leveling decisions, and performance outcomes before most people do, and you'll be trusted with all of it.
• Based in Pacific or Mountain time. Our People Experience team and most of our corporate leadership operate on West Coast hours, and this role needs real-time overlap.

Bonus Points For

• Hands-on experience with Radford / Aon compensation data 
• Public company experience, where training and compliance records get looked at closely 
• Experience supporting both corporate and fulfillment or operational populations across multiple states 
• Experience running performance and calibration cycles in an HRIS or talent platform 
• Background in consumer, CPG, e-commerce, or mission-driven organizations 
• Experience building a People function with AI leverage rather than added headcount

Twelve Months From Now…

• Grove's leveling framework is live, published, and used. Managers reach for it in real decisions instead of asking PX what a title means.
• Comp recommendations arrive with market data attached and don't get relitigated three times.
• New hires ramp faster, and they can tell you what their level means and what the next one looks like.
• Performance and calibration cycles run on a cadence people trust, grounded in the same level language everywhere.
• When a req does open, it gets a strong process and a strong hire — without the programs slipping while it's live.

One Last Important Note

This isn't a role for someone who wants People programs to be paperwork. It's for someone who thinks how a company levels, pays, onboards, and grows its people is the actual work of building it — and who wants to define how one company does that while that company is in the middle of changing what it is. If that sounds like your kind of hard, let's talk.

What's In It For You

• This full-time, exempt position is remote for candidates based in the following states: California, Maine, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Colorado, Washington, Illinois, New York, Missouri, and Massachusetts. Strong preference for candidates based in Pacific or Mountain timezones.
• Competitive benefits - medical, vision, dental 
• Equity - shared success is core to our mission 
• Flexible Paid Time Off - we care most about results
• Free VIP membership and 50% employee discount
• Working for a company that believes that a small group of people can change the world for the better by creating products and funding initiatives that help the planet!

Compensation

The salary range for this role is $105,000-130,000. Our compensation bands are determined based on market-specific cost of living data, meaning that the top of our salary range is reserved for the most experienced candidates in the highest cost of living areas across the country. In addition to the base salary, this role is eligible for an annual incentive target and equity.