Sr Talent & People Partner

About Rivia

Rivia is a technology company developing a data platform that is shaping the future of clinical trial analysis. Rivia was founded with the belief that new medicines can be brought to market more successfully with a fraction of today's capital.

Biotech companies are the most important source of therapeutic innovation. However, their clinical development is repeatedly hampered by fragmented data and outdated tools. Rivia aggregates clinical trial data at scale. At its core is a reusable intelligent data platform with hundreds of configurations and study-specific logic that works regardless of source data structure. This vertically integrated combination of data platform, workflows, and AI agents creates a critical advantage in conducting clinical trials.

In the past two years, biotech companies from Europe and the US conducting clinical trials worldwide with Rivia have achieved measurable results: from an earlier understanding of therapeutic potential to significantly more efficient study processes. In March 2026, Rivia raised $15 million in a Series A funding round, led by Earlybird Venture Capital.

Rivia aims to become the standard infrastructure for modern drug development and fundamentally transform the conduct of clinical trials from start to finish.

The Role

As a Senior Talent & People Partner, you will be the first addition to Rivia's People team. Together with the Head of People, you will build and develop the function from scratch. You will be responsible for the entire recruiting process while also growing into other people-related topics: employee experience, development, performance, company culture, organizational design, and people processes.

The position offers experienced recruiters the opportunity to take the next step into a more comprehensive people role. There is no ready-made HR handbook that you can simply take over. Together, we will develop processes, solve new challenges, try out ideas, and create the foundation for Rivia's growth. Through hands-on responsibility, close collaboration, and insights into strategic decisions as well as operational challenges, you will learn directly from the Head of People.

You will be the close sparring partner for the Head of People: you will think independently, work collaboratively with trust, and pitch in. You will contribute ideas, question assumptions, act quickly, and consistently implement initiatives. We are looking for someone who understands how people operations contribute to business success and wants to truly advise leaders – rather than just processing tasks.

What excites you

• You love recruiting but want to develop beyond talent acquisition and get to know the entire people spectrum.

• Being the first person on the People team and building everything from scratch excites you more than maintaining an existing handbook.

• You will work closely with the Head of People, question ideas, and learn through real responsibility.

• You will find exceptional talent and build trusting partnerships with hiring managers.

• You solve complex business and people questions quickly, with curiosity, and pragmatically.

• You want to improve employee experience, development opportunities, and collaboration.

• You take initiative, keep various priorities in mind, and directly see the impact of your work.

Your responsibilities

Talent Acquisition

• You will be responsible for the entire hiring process across all teams – from defining the role, talent mapping, active sourcing, interviews, and candidate management to offers and contract closings.

• You will provide informed advice to hiring managers on recruiting strategy, market conditions, candidate quality, and potential trade-offs.

• You will proactively build talent pipelines and ensure a respectful, reliable candidate experience.

• You will improve recruiting processes, ATS workflows, reporting, and recruiting analytics.

Employee Experience and Development

• Together with the Head of People, you will further develop onboarding, employee experience, engagement, company culture, and development initiatives.

• You will support the implementation of performance reviews, feedback practices, career development, and offerings for managers.

• You will listen to the concerns of employees and managers, identify pain points, and translate insights into concrete improvements.

People Operations and Business Partnership

• You will help build scalable people processes, policies, systems, and workflows from scratch across the entire employment lifecycle.

• You will support managers with pragmatic, business-oriented advice and thoughtful people decisions.

• With growing responsibility, you will contribute to projects on organizational design, compensation, HR operations, and people analytics.

• You will identify problems early, propose solutions, and take care of their implementation, rather than waiting for instructions.

What you bring

• Excellent German language skills.

• Extensive experience in recruiting throughout the entire hiring process, as well as proven success in independently filling challenging positions.

• The desire to develop into a more comprehensive people role; experience as an HR generalist is not required.

• You enjoy building new things, solving problems, acting quickly, thinking critically, and taking responsibility through to implementation.

• Business acumen and the confidence to question, persuade, and advise hiring managers and other stakeholders.

• You are comfortable with open-ended questions, high expectations, multiple parallel priorities, and hands-on work.

• Strong communication skills, good judgment, organizational talent, and experience in stakeholder management.

• Curiosity, humility, and a willingness to explore new areas of people expertise.

Advantageous

• Knowledge of Swiss labor law.

• Insights into employee development, performance management, or employee engagement.

• Experience in a startup or scale-up and familiarity with ATS, HRIS, or people analytics systems.

Application Process

Our application process typically takes two to four weeks and includes four steps:

1. Getting to know each other: 30-minute initial conversation with the People team.

2. In-depth discussion: Exchange with the Head of People about recruiting, business partnership, and your development goals.

3. Practical task: Jointly tackle a realistic recruiting and people challenge.

4. Meeting the team: On-site interviews in Zurich to see if we are a good fit for each other.

Our Values

At Rivia, we focus on top performance, continuous learning, and the success of our customers and our team.

• Win with full commitment: Tackle challenges with determination, perseverance, and drive.

• Embrace change: See change as an opportunity for improvement.

• Why not?: Question assumptions and remain curious.

• Identify gaps: Identify and solve problems early.

• Take responsibility together: Stand together for results and support each other.

• Create value-added solutions: Achieve meaningful results that truly make a difference.

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