People & Culture Lead (Founding HR)

CountAI is a \~50\-person AI \& technology company (engineering, R\&D, field services) based in Coimbatore, now entering its funded growth phase. We've grown on strong people and strong work — and we're hiring our first dedicated People \& Culture leader to build the foundation that lets us scale to 150 without losing what makes us good.

What you'll do

\- Set and protect culture — turn how we work into explicit values and norms, and defend them as we grow.

\- Build the performance system — KRAs/OKRs per function (engineering, R\&D, field service, ops), a review cadence, and the discipline to make managers actually run it.

\- Build capability — map skill gaps and run technical \+ soft\-skills training that moves the needle.

\- Lay the foundation — clean, compliant HR ops: contracts, onboarding, HRIS, payroll/statutory (PF/ESI/PT), POSH, employee files.

\- Retain our best — onboarding, 1:1s, growth paths, engagement; keep attrition in our engineering core low.

\- Hire when needed — own quality hiring for key roles (a part of the job, not the whole of it).

You'll thrive here if you

\- Have 7–11 years in HR and have been the first or second HR person in a company that scaled (\~50→150\) — you've built a people function, not just run one.

\- Have personally built at least two of: a culture/values program, a performance/OKR system, an L\&D calendar, or an HRIS rollout.

\- Have the backbone to tell leaders hard truths and hold managers accountable.

\- Earn the respect of technical people and handle sensitive matters (comp, exits, grievances) with complete discretion.

\- Are fluent in English and Tamil, based in (or moving to) Coimbatore.

Nice to have: HR in a funded startup/scale\-up · Keka/greytHR/Zoho/Darwinbox · first\-time\-manager coaching · MBA/PGDM\-HR.

What we offer: a genuine founding\-team mandate, direct access to the founder, the chance to set the culture of a company at its inflection point, and the runway to grow into Head of People.

To apply: send your CV with a 3–4 line note on one HR system you built from scratch and its impact.

Pay: ₹588,824\.29 \- ₹1,293,421\.86 per year

Benefits

• Cell phone reimbursement
• Food provided
• Provident Fund

Work Location: In person