People & Talent Lead

You'll run People at our client's company day to day: recruiting, HR operations, onboarding and performance. Your goal is to build the team we need for our next stage and take the day-to-day people and hiring work off the CEO. You'll report directly to the CEO and work onsite at our Ho Chi Minh City office. This is a hands-on role. You'll work closely with the CEO and team leads, and you'll also source candidates, run interviews, close offers, run payroll and compliance, and handle employee issues yourself. There's no playbook yet, so you'll build simple systems from scratch.

About Qode

• Qode · Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam · Full-time · Posted 2026-11-02
• Onsite · Ho Chi Minh City · Reports to the CEO
• We're hiring this role for our client, who is a leading sports participation platform in Southeast Asia. Their 1M users are all over the world, and strongest in Southeast Asia.
• Our client is a team of 24, mostly based in Vietnam, with people in the Philippines too. Over the next 12–18 months, they plan to roughly double the team and bring in several senior leaders.
• Every hire goes through a scorecard and structured interview process
• The CEO no longer handles routine hiring or HR admin, and focuses on senior hires and key decisions

Responsibilities

• Support the CEO on 3–5 senior leadership hires as we strengthen our leadership team
• Run the process for each search: coordinate search firms, source candidates, schedule interviews and manage offers
• Take the company size from 24 to around 50 people while keeping the hiring bar high
• Build pipelines through direct sourcing, referrals, networks and recruiters
• Create scorecards and structured interviews that every manager uses
• Support hiring outside Vietnam as the team grows in our largest markets
• Own HR administration for our Vietnam company: employment contracts, payroll inputs, social insurance
• Keep employee records, policies and HR tools simple and up to date
• Build onboarding and a simple, regular performance review process
• Help the CEO and Finance Director set pay bands and keep pay fair across teams
• Handle employee relations, including sensitive and difficult cases
• Support managers on hiring, feedback and performance conversations
• Flag people issues and trends to the CEO early

Requirements

• Run engagement check-ins and exit interviews so we spot problems early

What success looks like in 12 months

• Senior leadership searches run on a clear process, with at least 2 roles filled
• Payroll, contracts and social insurance run on time with no compliance issues
• Every employee has a regular performance review and understands how pay and promotions are decided
• People issues are resolved quickly, fairly and with good judgment
• 5+ years in HR or Talent roles, including hands-on generalist HR work, ideally at a fast-growing startup or
• Strong recruiting experience, including some senior or manager-level hires
• Hands-on knowledge of Vietnam labour law, payroll and social insurance
• Comfortable working with recruiters, search firms and outside HR partners
• The ability to work independently without a large HR team or an existing playbook

Strong judgment on performance, pay and sensitive situations

• A practical, low-bureaucracy approach: processes that help people rather than slow them down
• High ownership and a willingness to do the work yourself
• Native-level Vietnamese and fluent English, spoken and written, so you can work with our Vietnam team
• and regional candidates alike

Preferred

• Hired people outside Vietnam, directly or through an employer-of-record service
• Worked closely with founders
• Experience in consumer tech, marketplaces or sports

Benefits

• Helped scale a company from roughly 20–30 people to 50–100+
• Built recruiting or People systems from scratch
• Supported executive searches alongside a search firm

Competitive salary, plus 13th-month salary

• Report directly to the CEO, with real influence on how we grow
• The chance to shape the team behind Southeast Asia's leading sports platform
• Paid health insurance
• Transportation allowance
• Lunch provided
• Monthly team sports day

and labour-law compliance

Work with our employer-of-record and payroll partners when we hire outside Vietnam

The company is at or near 50 people, and most new hires are still with us and performing after 90 days

Apply

[Apply at Qode](https://apply.workable.com/qodeworld/j/E08B87ECCB/apply)