Senior Associate HR

Help Build Europe’s Hypersonic Capability

At Hypersonica, we’re redefining what’s possible in Europe and defence technology. We exist to deliver speed, resilience, and technological independence at a pace that sets a new standard. We are a small, elite team working on problems that matter, and solving them fast.

As our People & Performance Coordinator, you will help build the operating system that supports one of Europe’s highest-performing engineering teams. This is not a corporate HR admin role. You will work directly with the Head of People and Performance to keep hiring, onboarding, people processes, performance cycles, documentation, and employee operations running with speed, clarity, and discipline.

We are deliberately talent dense. Every hire matters. Every process should make the company faster, clearer, and more accountable. If you are highly organized, commercially minded, strong on UK HR fundamentals, and motivated by supporting exceptional people in a high‐performance environment, we want to hear from you.

What you’ll do

• Support the Head of People and Performance across day-to-day people operations, employee administration, onboarding, documentation, performance processes, and people systems.
• Own the operational execution of onboarding for new UK employees, ensuring every person joins with clear documentation, equipment coordination, system setup, employment checks, induction plans, and a high‐quality first‐week experience.
• Maintain accurate employee records across HiBob and related systems (e.g. SAP SuccessFactors), ensuring data is clean, up-to-date, and secure.
• Support all UK HR administration and documentation across the employee lifecycle.
• Ensure compliance across people processes with UK employment law, internal policies, security requirements and data protection.
• Help coordinate performance processes including probation reviews, objective-setting, feedback, documentation, and follow‐up actions.
• Track people‐related actions and deadlines with precision, making sure nothing important gets lost between hiring, onboarding, probation, performance, compensation, and employee changes.
• Support the development and maintenance of clear, practical people policies, templates, workflows, and guidance that managers can actually use.
• Act as a first point of contact for our employees in the UK and answer questions on onboarding, benefits, policies, and practical people matters.
• Partner with Talent, IT, Finance, Security, Facilities, and hiring managers to make sure employee transitions are smooth from offer acceptance through the employee lifecycle.
• Support data reporting and dashboards for headcount, onboarding, probation, performance actions, absence, turnover, and people operations.
• Proactively identify and improve broken or slow processes.
• Support a high‐performance culture and help build scalable people operations without importing corporate bureaucracy.

Who you are

• A hands‐on People or HR Associate with experience supporting UK employees in a start‐up or fast‐moving business.
• Strong working knowledge of UK HR fundamentals, including contracts, right‐to‐work, employee records, probation, absence, policy administration, and basic employment‐law considerations.
• Highly organised, detail‐driven and practical. Able to manage multiple moving parts across onboarding, employee changes, probation reviews, benefits and manager requests without dropping detail.
• Experienced using HR systems, ideally HiBob (e.g. SAP SuccessFactors, or similar) and confident maintaining accurate people data.
• Strong written communication skills. Able to work with senior leaders, managers, engineers, and new starters with confidence and professionalism.
• Discreet, mature and trusted with confidential people matters.
• Proactive by default. Comfortable operating in a high‐performance environment where standards are high, pace is fast, and people decisions matter.
• Experience in aerospace, defence, engineering, manufacturing, technology, or another high‐consequence environment preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree, or similar professional qualification in HR, Business or similar subject preferred.
• Motivated by building a people function that increases company velocity, protects standards and helps exceptional people do their best work.

What success looks like

• New starters are onboarded cleanly, quickly and with no avoidable confusion.
• HiBob and people records are accurate, complete and audit‐ready.
• Probation, performance, and people‐process deadlines are tracked and followed through.
• UK HR administration is compliant, fast, and reliable.

Due to the nature of the work with the UK MoD, applicants must be a British Citizen, or a dual national holding British citizenship, and eligible for UK Security Clearance and where required, Developed Vetting.

What we offer

• A mission‐driven environment with the opportunity to work on one of Europe’s most consequential defence challenges, with direct impact on sovereign capability and security.
• Daily collaboration with top experts across engineering, operations, defence, and business functions, with real opportunity to learn from the best, contribute, and grow.
• High ownership and autonomy; no micromanagement, just clear objectives and accountability for outcomes.
• A fast‐paced environment where good ideas are implemented quickly and broken processes are fixed rather than tolerated.
• A culture that values clarity, integrity, excellence, and direct feedback.
• Competitive compensation and real share options aligned to responsibility and impact, not tenure or hierarchy.

Hypersonica is an equal‐opportunity employer and assesses candidates solely on merit, capability, and potential.