Senior International Business Partner

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital. Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, we help organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake, and we're backed by Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed, Mantis VC, Redpoint, Sequoia, and Spark. The role, in a nutshell: As Chainguard scales across EMEA, we need someone to own the region the way our People team already owns the US — deeply, locally, and without a net. This is a newly created seat: you'll be the first People Business Partner based in EMEA, standing up the function as we open entities in the UK (live now) and Germany (coming soon). You'll partner closely with regional leaders — starting with our GVP of Sales and engineering leadership — on everything from performance and employee relations to compliance across a fast-growing, multi-country footprint. Today, Remote (our EOR partner) is the bridge for EMEA employee matters; as we stand up local entities, you'll take direct ownership of that work, including full-cycle employee relations and investigations, since we don't yet have a dedicated ER function. This is a builder's role — you'll shape how the People function works in the region as much as execute it. What you'll do:

Serve as the primary People partner to EMEA leaders, starting with our GVP of Sales and engineering leadership, coaching them through performance, org, and talent decisions Own end-to-end employee relations across the region, including sensitive or cross-border cases and formal investigations — there is no separate ER team, so this sits with you Lead performance management cycles (quarterly and annual) across multiple EMEA markets, adapting process to local norms while keeping a consistent bar Partner with our Compensation Manager on region-specific comp benchmarking and guidance through hiring, promotion, and annual review cycles Guide managers through country-specific employment requirements, including works councils, statutory notice periods, collective bargaining, and GDPR — partnering with Legal and outside counsel on jurisdiction-specific risk (redundancy, TUPE, co-determination) Work closely with our People Ops lead (based in Poland) on onboarding and operational execution, and with our L&D team on leadership development and culture programming for the region Stand up local-market infrastructure as we open new entities, starting with the UK and expanding to Germany Use people data and analytics to surface trends by country and market, and turn that into recommendations leadership can act on Support the wider EMEA footprint (UK, Ireland, and other EU markets, plus India), coordinating with the US-based People team on any APAC-adjacent needs

5+ years as a People Business Partner or equivalent is a must, with real, hands-on exposure to multi-country EMEA employee populations — not just policy knowledge Working fluency in