Soma Capital Portfolio Jobs

Senior People Business Partner

Vapi

Vapi

People & HR
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 170k-200k / year + Equity
Posted on Jan 15, 2026

Location

San Francisco

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

On-site

Department

G&APeople

Compensation

  • Base Salary + Equity $170K – $200K • Offers Equity

Vapi (/ˈwɑːpi/):

  • We’re creating the shift to voice as humanity’s default interface.

  • We’re the most configurable platform for deploying voice agents.

  • We’re grown to 400,000 developers in 20 months, adding 2,000+ every day.

  • Try talking to Vapi now!

Why We’re Hiring This Role:

  • As Vapi scales rapidly, we need a senior People leader who can own the operational backbone of our People function while serving as a trusted partner to leaders across the company. This role is critical to ensuring our People operations, compliance, and core programs scale with rigor while maintaining a high bar for leadership, performance, and culture.

What You’ll Do:

  • 30 Day:

    • Build a deep understanding of Vapi’s business, culture, values, and operating cadence

    • Audit existing People operations, HRIS workflows, compliance posture, and documentation

    • Establish strong working relationships with the Head of Talent & People, founders, and functional leaders

    • Take ownership of day-to-day People operations and employee support

  • 60 Day:

    • Fully own HR operations and compliance end-to-end, including onboarding, HRIS data integrity, contractor management, and policy maintenance

    • Begin leading active People programs such as performance management, employee relations cases, and manager coaching

    • Partner with leaders on current organizational needs, including team growth, role clarity, and performance expectations

    • Identify gaps and improvement areas across People processes and tooling

  • 90 Day:

    • Independently run performance review cycles, manager enablement programs, and core People initiatives

    • Serve as a trusted advisor to leaders on performance, feedback, and organizational effectiveness

    • Operationalize scalable People programs that support Vapi’s next phase of growth

    • Act as a consistent culture carrier, reinforcing expectations, values, and operating principles

Who You Are:

  • 6+ years of experience in HR, People Operations, or HR Business Partner roles, ideally in high-growth startups

  • Proven ability to independently own HR operations and compliance with strong attention to detail

  • Deep working knowledge of employment law fundamentals, employee relations, and HR best practices

  • Hands-on experience managing HRIS platforms and operational workflows

  • Experience owning performance review cycles and People programs end-to-end

  • Comfortable partnering directly with founders and senior leaders

  • Strong judgment, discretion, and ability to navigate sensitive situations

  • Clear, direct communicator with a bias toward action and practical solutions

  • Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building structure from scratch

Why Vapi:

  • Generational impact: Build human interface for every business.

  • Ownership culture: 90% of company is previous founders.

  • Kind team: The founders Jordan and Nikhil are Canadians.

  • Tier-1 Investors: YC, KP seed, Bessemer series A.

What We Offer:

  • Real stake: We offer competitive salary and excellent equity ownership.

  • Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision plans.

  • Team love: We love hanging out and do quarterly offsites.

  • Flexible time off: take what you need.

  • More: catered meals and transportation, gym & coaching stipends!

Compensation Range: $170K - $200K