People Operations Lead

Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our bioengineers make use of an in-house automated foundry for designing and building new organisms. 

Candidate Summary

We are seeking a disciplined, systems-oriented People Operations professional to support our People Solutions function. You are a Workday power-user who excels at maintaining operational stability within a fast-evolving organization. This role is designed for an individual who can navigate shifting priorities with composure, translate complex tasks into reliable workflows, and maintain rigorous data integrity. You possess the technical aptitude to manage data across multiple platforms and the proactive mindset to support vendor lifecycles and compliance audits.

Responsibilities:

Operational

• Lead end-to-end Workday transaction support, ensuring accuracy and compliance in employee lifecycle events including hires, terminations, promotions, compensation changes, and organizational moves.
• Serve as the primary operational owner for People Ops, ensuring processes run smoothly across HR programs, audits and compliance.
• Manage the People team ticketing system, resolving complex inquires and improving workflows
• Support benefits administration and annual open enrollment by enhancing employee experience, streamlining communications, and strengthening cross-functional collaboration.
• Support execution of annual compensation programs (equity, salary refresh, promotion planning) by managing reporting requirements, ensuring data accuracy, and partnering cross-functionally to implement compensation changes in Workday.
• Partner with the Senior Manager, People Systems and Strategy to conduct end-user testing for new configurations, influencing adoption of improved tools, concepts, and system enhancements.
• Process employment verifications, employment letters, and unemployment claims processes, enhancing service delivery standards and improving turnaround times through process refinement.

Strategic Oversight

• Serve as a subject matter expert in People operations, applying deep functional expertise to optimize Workday processes, strengthen data integrity, and drive continuous improvement across HR systems and workflows.
• Identify process gaps and proactively proposed new methods and processes related to employee lifecycle management, ticketing workflows, reporting, audits, and compliance activities.
• Lead and coordinate audits, ensuring risk mitigation and regulatory compliance while strengthening internal controls and operational rigor.
• Deliver high-value reporting and workforce insights to business leaders, translating data into actionable information that supports decision-making and organizational effectiveness.
• Partner with the Senior Manager, People Systems and Strategy to conduct end-user testing for new configurations, influencing adoption of improved tools, concepts, and system enhancements.
• Oversee People team vendors and contract lifecycles, lead renewal negotiations, and project manage RFP processes to introduce innovative partners and scalable solutions that elevate People operations.

Requirements / Who You Are

• Experience: 8-10 years of HR Operations experience with a Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant field.
• Systems Proficiency: Strong working knowledge of Workday HCM is required. You are highly proficient in G-Suite, particularly with advanced formulas in Google Sheets. Familiarity with Greenhouse Recruiting and Ironclad (or similar contract tools) is a plus.
• Agile Problem Solver: You are comfortable in a dynamic, high-growth environment. You stay organized when priorities shift and can manage multiple workstreams simultaneously.
• Detail-Oriented: You have an obsessive eye for accuracy, viewing yourself as a critical line of defense for data integrity.
• Strategic Thinker: You look for the "why" behind a task and how the effects of a task upstream and with countand enjoy finding ways to make manual processes more efficient.
• High Agency: You are a self-starter who takes ownership of your work queue and proactively seeks out solutions before escalating issues.
• Disciplined Project Leader: You possess strong organizational hygiene and the ability to move a project from concept to completion. You don’t just manage tasks; you manage timelines, stakeholders, and expectations. You are skilled at breaking down complex People initiatives into actionable steps, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks even when navigating shifting priorities.

Continuously improving. You're never satisfied with "good enough." You regularly ask: What can we automate? Where are we losing time? What would a better process look like? — and then you go build it.

The base salary range for this role is $111,300 to $157,600. Actual pay within this range will depend on a candidate's skills, expertise, and experience. We also offer company stock awards, a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental & vision coverage, health spending accounts, voluntary benefits, leave of absence policies, 401(k) program with employer contribution, 8 paid holidays in addition to a full-week winter shutdown and unlimited Paid Time Off policy.

Ginkgo has implemented a return to office policy effective October 1, 2025 with required in-office days 3x per week on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.  Some teams may require to be onsite 4-5 days per week and this will be discussed as part of the interview process.  This policy applies to all employees who live within 50 miles of Ginkgo’s offices in Boston, MA, Emeryville, CA and West Sacramento, CA.

It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees, employment applicants, and EOE disability/vet. 

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