The posting
Hello. We’re Polaroid. An iconic brand, built by passionate people
Polaroid was founded in 1937 by one of the 20th century’s most influential innovators, Edwin Land, whose philosophy was: “Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.”
In 2008, Polaroid produced its last pack of instant film. But a group of passionate fans refused to let instant photography disappear. What started as The Impossible Project grew into a mission to preserve and reinvent analogue photography for a new generation. More than a decade later, that same startup acquired the Polaroid brand and continues to shape its future today.
At Polaroid, we create products and experiences that spark emotion, fuel creativity, and bring people closer together. At the intersection of art and technology, we believe in the power of analogue moments and genuine human connection in an increasingly digital world.
The Role We're looking for an experienced, hands-on People Operations Leader to own our HR operations, systems, and compliance backbone as Polaroid scales.
This is a builder role, for someone who finds real satisfaction in getting operations right. You'll take ownership of our People operations function, HRIS architecture, people data, and cross-jurisdiction compliance and the processes that make onboarding, offboarding, and everything in between run cleanly. Much of this doesn't exist yet in a finished form; you'll be building it from scratch, with the trust and autonomy to shape how the function operates for years to come.
You'll also modernize how employees experience the People function, using automation and AI to replace manual, repetitive admin with something faster, more consistent, and genuinely pleasant to use. If you like moving between process mapping in the morning and prototyping an AI-driven workflow in the afternoon, this role gives you room to do both, with real employees feeling the difference.
You'll partner closely with peers across Finance, IT, Payroll, People Business partnering and TA and be an example of what a well-connected, operationally excellent People team can deliver.
Key Responsibilities
Employee Experience, Process & AI Automation
- Map, design, and build People processes end-to-end across the employee lifecycle.
- Be the first point of contact for employees navigating People processes. You'll problem-solve, coach, and make the admin side of work feel human.
- Lead cross HR and cross-functional workstreams and change initiatives that move the needle, bringing stakeholders along the journey.
- Push the team's thinking on AI: spot where automation can kill repetitive admin and improve employee experience (FAQs, policy navigation, chatbots). Build it, implement it, and make sure it's compliant.
- Be the person the rest of the People team comes to when they want to know what's possible with AI and help them get there.
Systems & People Data
- Own our HR tech stack (HRIS, ATS, payroll interfaces, performance platforms). Keep asking whether each piece is adding the right value, cutting redundancy wherever you find it.
- Be the person people come to when a system is misbehaving, and no one else can figure out why.
- Build a People dashboard leadership actually wants to look at and get the rest of HR fluent in using data to make the case for what they need.
Compliance & Employment Law
- Keep us on the right side of employment law as we grow across jurisdictions working closely with Legal and the People Business Partners.
- Own a policy library and knowledge base people can find their way through.
- Turn policy into workflows that run themselves where they can with clear approval paths, exception handling, and a human in the loop where it matters.
Payroll, Benefits & Mobility
- Administer compensation cycles and salary changes and ensure accuracy across payroll inputs and benefits enrollment.
- Be the support for employees relocating or joining on a visa coordinating permits, work authorizations, and registrations with external partners so moving countries doesn't feel like a bureaucratic maze.
- Be the go-to person managers and employees turn to when they have immigration questions.
Who You Are
- Experience working in a fast-paced, scaling environment, ideally within a technology-led company, scale-up or start-up.
- Experience in People Operations or a generalist HR role focused on making things run, building from scratch, fixing broken processes, and keeping the operational side of a People function healthy at scale.
- You've gone deep on at least one HR system (experience with Personio is a plus) as the person who configured it, audited data quality, and built its workflows. You know how to judge whether a tool is serving the business or just adding overhead.
- You look beyond system limitations and proactively find practical solutions, with a strong intrinsic drive to investigate and improve
- You are a strong Project Manager: you break vague goals into concrete next steps and keep things moving through clear ownership and realistic timelines.
- You stays on top of evolving systems and continuously explore ways to optimize processes and extract more value.
- You are familiar with employment law in the Netherlands. Experience with Germany and Asian markets is a plus.
- You build trust quickly, influence without authority, and get easily alignment across teams.
- Fluent in both "HR" and "tech" you can translate strategy into usable solutions.
What We Offer
- A high-impact transformation project with visible outcomes.
- The opportunity to reshape the employee experience end-to-end.
- Collaboration with a passionate team at the intersection of creativity, technology, and human connection.
AI in our hiring process
Our recruitment team reviews every application, including your CV. We may use AI-assisted technology to support the initial review process and help our recruiters work more efficiently. Your application is always reviewed by a recruiter and all our hiring decisions are made by people. Learn more in our Privacy Policy: https://www.polaroid.com/legal/careers-job-applicant-privacy-policy https://www.polaroid.com/en_nl/legal/careers-job-applicant-privacy-policy
Our Approach to AI
At Polaroid we believe two things can be true at once: technology can help us move forward, while human creativity, craft, judgement and real-world connection matter more than ever.
Since our beginning, we've embraced technology to create meaningful human experiences. Today that means exploring new tools, including AI, with curiosity and care, using them where they help us work better and build a stronger business, while staying true to what defines our brand.
