Senior Director of Human Resources

Position Summary

NALEJ is seeking an accomplished Senior Director of Human Resources to serve as the company’s senior-most HR leader and a member of the Executive Leadership Team. Reporting to the CEO, this person will translate business priorities into workforce capability, strengthen leadership and culture, and build the people systems required for responsible growth.

This is a hands-on executive role. The successful candidate must be equally comfortable advising senior leaders, resolving complex employee matters, personally sourcing and recruiting critical talent, improving manager effectiveness, and executing the fundamentals of HR operations and compliance.

Key Responsibilities

Executive Partnership and Organization

Advise the CEO and CXO team on organization design, workforce risk, leadership effectiveness, culture, talent, compensation, and change.

Convert company priorities, contract demand, and product roadmaps into practical workforce plans, reporting structures, and hiring priorities.

Provide clear options and recommendations on consequential people decisions and drive agreed actions to completion.

Recruiting and Talent Sourcing

Own and personally execute full-cycle recruiting for technical, product, program, corporate, and executive roles.

Source active and passive candidates through direct outreach, referrals, professional networks, LinkedIn Recruiter, ClearanceJobs, veteran communities, universities, and other targeted channels.

Build pipelines for cleared and clearance-eligible talent, including hard-to-fill software, cloud, cybersecurity, and program roles.

Partner with hiring leaders to define credible requirements, screen and assess candidates, lead structured selection, and improve hiring quality and speed.

Manage the candidate experience through interviews, offer development, negotiation, acceptance, and onboarding while maintaining accurate pipeline data.

Performance Culture and Talent

Own a practical performance-management system connecting business, individual, and team contribution to expectations, feedback, development, and rewards.

Coach executives and managers through conflict, difficult feedback, team dynamics, role clarity, and organizational change.

Assess organizational health using employee feedback, retention data, manager input, and direct observation; convert findings into focused action.

Partner with the CEO and Finance on compensation philosophy, incentives, equity, workforce cost, succession, and retention.

HR Operations Compliance and Risk

Own the employee handbook, policies, records, HR workflows, benefits and leave administration, onboarding, offboarding, and recurring compliance activities.

Lead sensitive employee-relations matters, investigations, performance interventions, accommodations, and separations with discretion and defensible documentation.

Maintain sound practices across EEO, anti-harassment and retaliation, wage and hour, leave, worker classification, and related employment requirements.

Optimize BambooHR and related systems so data is accurate, workflows are reliable, and leaders receive useful workforce reporting.

What Success Looks Like

Within 90 days, complete a focused assessment of organizational health, workforce needs, employee risk, recruiting priorities, policy gaps, HR operations, and people data.

Establish a dependable operating cadence with the CEO and CXO team and stabilize priority hiring, employee-relations, and compliance matters.

Within 12 months, implement a scalable HR foundation with clear policies, reliable workflows, stronger managers, and consistent performance practices.

Improve NALEJ’s ability to forecast, source, select, onboard, develop, and retain critical talent with greater speed, quality, and accountability.

Required Qualifications

12 or more years of progressive HR, people operations, or organizational leadership experience, including at least five years leading an HR function or serving as a senior HR partner to executives.

Demonstrated success building or materially improving HR infrastructure in a growing, changing, or founder-led organization.

Hands-on full-cycle recruiting and talent-sourcing experience, including search strategy, passive sourcing, structured screening, pipeline management, candidate assessment, and offer closing.

Broad command of employee relations, performance management, compensation, benefits, compliance, organizational development, and HR operations.

Experience leading sensitive investigations, performance interventions, separations, accommodations, and executive-level employee matters.

Working knowledge of federal and state employment requirements and sound judgment about when to engage counsel or escalate risk.

Strong business and financial acumen, including the ability to connect workforce decisions to revenue, delivery, labor cost, profitability, and enterprise risk.

Exceptional executive communication and influence; able to challenge respectfully, resolve conflict, and drive decisions across strong personalities.

Bachelor’s degree in human resources, business, organizational leadership, psychology, law, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience in government contracting, defense, national security, enterprise software, cloud technology, or another complex regulated environment.

Experience recruiting cleared technical talent and using LinkedIn Recruiter, ClearanceJobs, BambooHR, or comparable sourcing and applicant-tracking tools.

Familiarity with labor categories, billability, contract staffing, security requirements, and project-based talent deployment.

Experience scaling an organization through significant headcount growth, organizational redesign, or major operating change.

Master’s degree, law degree, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, or comparable advanced credential.

Leadership Profile

The right leader is credible, courageous, practical, and low ego. They can provide candid executive counsel without losing trust, remain calm amid ambiguity and conflict, build only the process the company needs, and personally execute critical work in a lean environment.

Work Environment and Opportunity

This full-time role is based in Arlington, Virginia, with regular in-person presence and reasonable flexibility based on business needs. Occasional travel and availability outside standard hours may be required for urgent employee or executive matters. NALEJ offers competitive executive-level compensation based on experience and final scope; the package may include base salary, performance-based compensation, benefits, and equity participation under approved company plans.

About NALEJ

NALEJ Corporation is a mission-focused technology company supporting advanced software, cloud, infrastructure, data, and national security capabilities for government and defense customers. The company is building the leadership, workforce, and operating systems required for its next stage of growth.

Equal Employment Opportunity

NALEJ Corporation is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law. Reasonable accommodations are available to qualified applicants and employees with disabilities.