Staff People Partner

What we’re building

The marine industry supports recreation, global commerce, and national defense. And yet it runs on technology that hasn't meaningfully changed in fifty years. Until now.
Arc is on a mission to electrify the marine industry. We're rethinking powertrains, software, and vessel designs from first principles. And we're already executing. We started with consumers to develop and harden our core technology. We’re now scaling production of our flagship model with new models and sectors on the horizon. Now we’re extending our platform to commercial applications, starting with tugs, ferries, and defense, with years worth of signed contracts and a pipeline that spans every vessel type on the water. 

The technology is proven, the momentum is building, and the opportunity is enormous. The marine industry is going electric and Arc is building the platform that powers it.

Who we’re looking for

As Arc's Staff People Partner, you will own the people strategy for our Sales, Service, and G&A organizations while building the manager development and career growth systems the whole company runs on. That means acting as the trusted advisor to leaders across those functions on org design, performance, and employee relations; designing and facilitating the training that raises the bar on how Arc manages; and building career pathways that give individual contributors a clear line of sight to what's next.

Roughly 40% of your time will be spent on learning and development, primarily for managers, with a meaningful share dedicated to IC career pathways. This is not a coordinator role bolted onto a generalist job. You will own the curriculum, teach it yourself, and measure impact.

You'll report to our Senior Staff People Partner and partner closely with functional leaders. The work spans exempt corporate teams, commissioned sales, and a field-based service organization, so you'll need range.

We're looking for someone fired up by the mission and ready to build. You'll thrive here if you move fast, take ownership, and care about the details. This is a full-time, on-site role at our Los Angeles headquarters.

What You'll Do

• Business partnership: Sales, Service & G&A

  • Partnering with leaders across Sales, Service, and G&A on organizational design, headcount planning, reporting structures, and spans of control as those teams scale.
  • Coaching managers through the full performance cycle: goal setting, calibration, feedback, promotion cases, and performance improvement, grounded in Arc's leveling guidelines.
  • Conducting employee relations investigations end-to-end, counseling employees and leadership.
  • Leading terminations and role changes with dignity, and owning communication with the teams they affect.
  • Advising on California employment law, wage and hour compliance, and compensation practices across a mixed exempt, non-exempt, and commissioned population.
  • Translating people data - attrition, engagement, promotion velocity -  into insights leaders act on, and presenting the case behind them.
  • Leading change management for policy, program, and process rollouts, preparing managers before their teams hear the news and serving as a source of stability through it.
  • Providing constructive pushback and playing devil's advocate when it's warranted, then owning the communication and execution of the decision even when it differs from your own view.

  Learning & development — 40% of the role

  • Building and facilitating Arc's manager development curriculum, from first-time supervisor fundamentals through senior topics like coaching, delegation, difficult conversations, and performance calibration.
  • Designing career pathways for individual contributors that make Arc's leveling framework concrete: what impact looks like at each level, which skills close the gap, and how to build them.
  • Running skills gap analyses with functional leaders and turning them into learning roadmaps tied to business priorities rather than training for training's sake.
  • Facilitating live workshops, cohort programs, and onboarding content yourself, supplementing with outside vendors only where they clearly outperform.
  • Measuring program effectiveness against behavior change and business outcomes, then iterating on what the data tells you.
  • Building the templates, documentation, and systems that let these programs scale beyond you, so managers in Engineering and Production can run the same playbooks without your calendar as the bottleneck.
  • Mentoring junior members of the People team and contributing to their professional and career growth.

Minimum Qualifications

• Experience as a People Partner or HRBP supporting go-to-market, service, or corporate functions, including direct support of director-level and above leaders (typically 8+ years of progressive People experience, though strong performance outweighs years).
• Demonstrated experience building a manager training or leadership development program from scratch — needs analysis, curriculum design, and live facilitation, not just program administration.
• Experience designing and rolling out career frameworks, competency models, or leveling guidelines that employees and managers actually use.
• Strong knowledge of CA employment law, wage and hour regulations, compensation practices, and benefits strategies.
• Proven ability to conduct and document employee relations investigations independently and defensibly.
• Experience in people analytics and leveraging data to inform decision-making.
• Ability to influence without authority at every level, from front-line supervisors to the executive team, adapting your approach to the audience.
• Ability to work on-site at our Los Angeles headquarters.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience in a high-growth manufacturing, hardware, automotive, or aerospace environment.
• Background supporting a commissioned sales team, including partnering on comp plan design, or a field-based service organization.
• Experience supporting a workforce that spans exempt corporate, non-exempt production, and traveling field employees.
• Formal training or certification in coaching, instructional design, or facilitation.
• Proficiency with an HRIS and LMS at the implementation level, not just as an end user.
• Experience standing up a People function's operating rhythm during rapid headcount scaling.

At Arc, we encourage diversity and consider all qualified applicants equally for employment, regardless of background, identity, or status. You’re always welcome to reach out even if you don’t meet many of these qualifications. Passion and aptitude make up for a lot.

What we offer

The base salary for this role is P3: $140,000 P4: $170,000 annually.

Highly competitive equity grants are included with full time offers. As well as semi-annual bonuses tied to your impact, not just your tenure.

Additionally, Arc offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

• Healthcare benefits — 99% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision
• Parental leave — 14 weeks fully paid for birthing and non-birthing parents
• Generous time off — Highly competitive PTO with  an opportunity to earn more time with tenure
• Income protection — Life and disability insurance for all employees
• Retirement savings — Traditional and Roth 401(k) access
• Water fund — $500 for you to spend each year to get out on the water, however you choose
• Professional development — $500 annual reimbursement for professional development and a monthly AI stipend 
• Safety Support- Annual reimbursement for PPE, ergonomic equipment and anything that ensures we keep our crew safe
• Captain training — Training and access to take Arc boats out with friends and family
• Office perks — Daily  lunches, snacks, and good coffee while onsite
• Relocation assistance — Available depending on role eligibility.

Our values

We move with urgency and build with care. We value these five things above all else:

• Ownership over both your work and the company’s success
• Empathy for colleagues and for customers
• Humility  in problem solving and collaboration
• Pragmatism for navigating ambiguity quickly and sensibly 
• Inclusion of different backgrounds, opinions, cultures, and perspectives.

We want people who share and embody these values. It is vital that our values align - we’d be happy to elaborate on any or all of these during the interview process.