About the role
The Team The People Team at Chainalysis is dedicated to enabling growth, building an inclusive environment, and providing the support that helps our employees do the best work of their careers. Chainalysis is at a defining moment, transforming from a product-based company to an intelligence platform AI native company. The People Team plays a critical role in ensuring our organization evolves as fast as our technology.
The Role We're looking for a Director, HR Business Partner to serve as the strategic people partner to our R&D organization, the engine behind the blockchain intelligence products that governments, financial institutions, and crypto businesses around the world rely on to navigate blockchains safely and with confidence. You will be the dedicated people strategist for R&D, partnering directly with the Head of R&D and the senior leadership team across engineering, research, product, design, and support to build a world-class technology-led organization during a period of significant transformation. R&D at Chainalysis is in the midst of a fundamental shift — evolving team structures, operating models, and technical workflows as the company moves from application-based delivery to an intelligence platform powered by agents, and from pre-AI practices to AI-native engineering. You'll be at the center of this transformation, thought partnering with a newly appointed R&D leader as they reshape the organization, helping leaders rethink how teams are organized, how talent is developed, and how AI-era productivity reshapes what high-performing R&D organizations look like. This role is focused on building the organizational architecture for what comes next, evolving our R&D culture to support the work of the future. In this role, you'll: Serve as a strategic partner to the Head of R&D and R&D's senior leadership, building and embedding our people strategy to accelerate Chainalysis's transformation to an intelligence company Lead organizational design and change management across R&D as teams evolve to support new operating models. Understand the distinct workflows and the different operating rhythms of platform engineering, data science, research, product, design, and support. Partner with leadership to design structures that optimize for velocity, ownership, autonomy, and cross-functional collaboration Drive the people side of AI transformation; help leaders understand how AI-augmented productivity is reshaping engineering roles, team sizes, and career trajectories. Evolve technical career frameworks and leveling to reflect the shift toward AI-native development and increased individual ownership Own workforce planning and talent strategy for R&D, including succession planning, critical-role identification, and retention strategies for deeply specialized technical talent in a competitive market (blockchain, cryptography, data science, security), across our core technology hubs (NYC, Aarhus, and Tel Aviv). Partner with R&D leadership and Finance to ensure organizational design and headcount decisions balance growth investment with operational efficiency and cost discipline Coach and challenge senior technical leaders on organizational health, performance management, team effectiveness, and employee relations, bringing both data and empathy to difficult conversations. Hold leaders accountable to Chainalysis's cultural standards as the organization scales Help redefine R&D's operating rhythm and cultural standards; partner with the Head of R&D to reinforce an execution-oriented culture built on pride in craft, operational rigor, urgency, and transparency. Support the people dimensions of OKR-driven planning, quarterly business reviews, and structured accountability across a global, hybrid organization Use data to see around corners; leverage people analytics to diagnose organizational health, identify attrition risks, and surface trends before they become systemic. Bring the same analytical rigor to people decisions that R&D brings to technical ones We're looking for candidates who have: 10+ years of progressive HR/People experience, with at least 5 years as a strategic HRBP supporting engineering, R&D, or other deeply technical global organizations at high-growth technology companies with strong engineering cultures Experience scaling an R&D organization through a period of rapid growth; you've been part of the journey as a technical organization of 200+ grew meaningfully in size and complexity, supporting ambitious revenue targets; you know what breaks at each stage of scaling, how roles and structures need to evolve in real-time, and how to build the people infrastructure to support a business that's growing fast A builder's mindset - you can collaborate and create frameworks, programs, and approaches from scratch rather than waiting for a playbook. You approach people systems with the same iterative, build-and-improve mentality as the engineers you support A deep understanding of how technical organizations operate and how AI is reshaping work; you can speak credibly about engineering workflows, product development lifecycles, platform vs. product team structures, and the distinct cultures of engineering, data science, and research. You have a point of view on how AI is changing the tech landscape, how it changes the nature of engineering work and team composition, to how it can be leveraged to reduce friction in people operations. Executive Presence, Analytics, and Influence; you demonstrate high-trust coaching and executive presence, holding the line on what’s right for the organization while challenging leaders constructively. You pair this with strong analytical capabilities, using people data and organizational diagnostics to drive action. As a senior individual contributor, you lead through influence, credibility, and the quality of your thinking rather than positional authority—proving equally adept at presenting to the executive team and sitting with a first-time engineering manager to navigate complex, high-stakes situations.
