People & Talent Product Engineer

Hi 👋 I'm Ash Rama, VP People at hyperexponential.

I lead the team responsible for how hx makes decisions about its people: comp, performance, org design, and increasingly, the systems and tools that power all of it. We don't buy software off the shelf when it doesn't fit how we actually want to work, we want to build it ourselves, bespoke to hx. This means shipping everything from simple internal letter-writing tools to a full multi-level compensation platform used by every employee and manager here.

I'm hiring a product engineer to join the People & Talent team, within Central Functions and become the builder behind these tools: someone who can take a prototype, decide how it should actually work and feel for the person using it, then build it out to the highest of hx standards, end to end, back end, data, infrastructure, and ship something that holds up under real use.

This isn't a typical engineering role. You'll sit close to People & Talent day to day, but work alongside our IT and Security teams to make sure everything we build is secure and compliant by design, not bolted on after the fact. I think this is the future of how People functions will operate in the AI era: technical, product-minded, building rather than configuring. If that excites you more than a conventional engineering role would, I'd love to hear from you.

About Central Functions

Central Functions is the core of hx, laying the road for the business to execute on. We bring together Finance, Legal, People, Talent, and Business Operations, the connective tissue that lets every other part of hx move fast with confidence. You'll sit inside this function, working closely with People & Talent day to day, and partnering with IT and Security to make sure everything you build is secure and compliant from the ground up.

Reporting line and engineering partnership

This role reports into our VP People. You'll also work in close partnership with a senior or staff-level engineer from our core Engineering team, who'll sense-check technical decisions and review your work. This isn't day-to-day pairing or management; you'll operate with real autonomy, with that partnership acting as a technical backstop rather than a supervisor. We're looking for someone with 2-4 years' experience who can own a build with real autonomy.

What you'll be doing

• Act as product engineer for People & Talent, owning the full arc from problem framing and experience design through to technical build and delivery, for tools spanning simple internal utilities to our multi-level compensation platform.

• Make the UI and design calls that matter for how people across hx actually experience these tools, whether that's an employee submitting a request or a manager running calibration, turning "we need this to work" into something genuinely well-designed and intuitive.

• Take front-end prototypes built across People & Talent and turn them into production-ready products, full stack: building out the back end, data model, and infrastructure to make them reliable and scalable.

• Spec new builds properly before writing code, mapping the experience and delivery plan (who uses it, how, what "done" looks like) alongside the technical architecture, so nothing gets built twice or built wrong.

• Iterate on live tools based on real user feedback, treating internal People & Talent products with the same product rigour as anything we'd ship externally.

• Work with highly sensitive employee and compensation data, following hx's data protection and security policies closely, and help shape them as our tools evolve.

• Grow into a genuinely unusual specialism: product engineering for People & Talent, sitting at the intersection of software engineering, UX, security, and people operations.

What good looks like

Within 3 months: existing tools that have already been prototyped and tested, ones already proven to be incrementally helpful, are live in production and released to the business.

Within 6 months: a high-impact tool, such as compensation management, is built and in testing.

What you'll need to have done

• 2-4 years' experience as a full stack or product engineer, having owned a tool or feature end to end, from spec through to production, not just contributed to someone else's build.

• Made significant UI/UX decisions with real users in mind, and can point to specific choices you made and why, not just features you shipped.

• Operated with real autonomy, as the primary or sole engineer on a project, comfortable making calls without close day-to-day technical supervision.

• Full stack development experience, front end and back end, including some ownership of data models and infrastructure decisions such as hosting, access control, and monitoring.

• Worked with sensitive or regulated data, or is comfortable operating within data protection and security policy constraints.

• Bonus, not required: prior exposure to People, HR, or Talent systems or processes.

You're unlikely to thrive here if

• You've come from a People Ops or Talent background and picked up scripting or no-code skills, but haven't shipped and owned a production software product; this role needs software engineering depth, not enthusiasm for tools.

• You want a fully staffed engineering team around you for day-to-day technical support; this role is largely autonomous, with senior review rather than pairing.

• You're looking for a narrow, single-build project; this role's scope is designed to grow.

Where this role goes

This isn't a well-trodden path, and that's the point. People & Talent teams are changing, and being able to build and deliver bespoke, in-house product is a reality we want to make the most of at hx. This role will prove that out and set the course for what a product engineering capability inside People & Talent looks like, not just at hx, but as a model for what this discipline can be. You'll be a product owner in every sense: shaping what gets built, why, and seeing the impact of your work in front of you, on real tools used by real people across the business, with the scope of that ownership growing as the capability proves itself.

Compensation

At hx, we're committed to salary transparency. You'll always have clarity on pay early in the process - our Talent Partner will share details with you during initial conversations - and we're working towards publishing salary information for all roles globally.

Because we're building at the intersection of technology/SaaS and insurance, our roles don't always map neatly onto traditional benchmarks. Our approach is to design compensation that's competitive in the market, fair across teams, and aligned with the impact our people make.

Equity: We offer equity across all roles at hx, making it a significant component of total compensation. Your talent partner will be able to share more details about this.

Benefits

• £5,000 training and conference budget for individual and group development.

• 25 days of holiday plus 8 bank holidays (33 days total).

• Company pension scheme via Penfold.

• Mental health support and therapy via Spectrum.life.

• Individual wellbeing allowance via Juno.

• Private healthcare insurance through AXA.

• Income protection and Life Insurance.

• Cycle to Work Scheme

Additional perks

• Top-spec equipment (laptop, screens, adjustable desks, etc.).

• Regular remote and in-person hackathons, lunch and learns, socials, and game nights.

• Team breakfasts and lunches, snacks, drinks fridge, and a fun office at The Ministry.

• Exceptional opportunities for personal development and growth as we build something remarkable together.

Hiring Process

1. Talent partner screening

2. Hiring manager first stage interview - conversation, 1 hour

3. Panel interview skills assessment - take home task as well as in-interview task

4. Values interview

Please note that background checks will be conducted as part of the hiring process to ensure compliance with our governance policies. We handle all background checks sensitively and in full compliance with relevant regulations. All applicant data will be processed in accordance with data protection regulations and our privacy policy.