VP, People
Backblaze (Nasdaq: BLZE) | Reports to the CHRO | Remote, US-based
Salary range: $210,000 - $230,000, plus 30% target annual bonus and RSUs
How We Got Here
Backblaze is the object storage leader in the open cloud movement, fueling customer success with cloud storage built purposefully to unlock budgets, unburden administrators, and unleash innovators. Together with our partners, we're helping customers break free from the restrictive, overpriced legacy solutions that hold them back, and blaze forward with the full power of the open cloud in their hands.
We started by building storage servers from scratch in a Palo Alto apartment to save 90% on hardware. Turns out hard constraints make for pretty good engineering. That discipline forged a platform that performs as well or better than competitors, scales to multi-exabyte workloads, and costs a fraction of what AWS or Google charge. AI infrastructure runs on data. Storage gets hard at scale. We've been breaking, rebuilding, and improving that storage layer for 20 years.
Today, the world's leading AI infrastructure providers, neoclouds, and data-intensive businesses run on Backblaze. Our platform includes:
- B2 Overdrive - high-throughput object storage engineered for AI infrastructure, GPU workloads, and massive-scale data pipelines
- B2 Neo - white-label enterprise cloud storage powering neocloud platforms for AI, HPC, and media
- B2 Cloud Storage - S3-compatible object storage with predictable pricing, free egress, and no lock-in
- Computer Backup - automatic, continuous endpoint backup for Macs and PCs
500,000+ customers. 175 countries. Nasdaq: BLZE. backblaze.com
The Role
Reporting to the CHRO, we need a builder to run People at a public, remote-first company scaling through roughly the 500-1000 range while expanding internationally. You’ll design the systems that make Backblaze a great place to work when there’s no office doing that job for us - engagement, culture, communications, retention, succession, and manager development - and you’ll run a small HR Operations and strategic HRBP team to do it.
This isn't a maintenance role. The operational foundation is already in place; you'll build the next layer on top of it, with your team, using AI agents as part of how the work gets done. If your instinct is to scope a vendor and a project plan, or disappear for six weeks and come back with a deck, this isn't the right fit. If your instinct is to open a doc, pull your team in, and start building the first version together, keep reading.
What You Will Own
Build
- Making Backblaze an even better place to work when there is no office carrying it for us. That means designing connection, belonging, and teamwork into how the company operates rather than hoping they happen on their own.
- Engagement as a leader-owned discipline with outcomes, not a survey followed by silence. People want to connect their work to where the company is going. You build the system that makes that real.
- Strategic employee and leader communications: a standing rhythm that gives people line of sight to the strategy, tells the same story every quarter, and makes sure information reaches every geography and every time zone.
- Culture as a design output. We are remote-first, expanding internationally, and growing fast. Connection, recognition, and belonging stop happening by accident at this stage. If we do not design them, distance designs them for us. Onboarding, team rituals, and the few in-person moments a year get designed and budgeted like anything else that matters.
- Remote working excellence: one company, many geographies. Same expectations, same development, same voice in the room, wherever someone sits. Offshore is where we hire, not a tier of employees.
- Retention and succession: knowing who is at risk before they resign, building the bench underneath key roles, and making sure we are not one resignation away from a gap we cannot fill.
- A learning organization: manager capability rebuilt for distributed teams, internal mobility, cross-functional movement, and development that survives contact with a busy quarter. What it means to be a manager at Backblaze is changing as spans widen, AI reshapes teams, and most managers rarely see their people. You rewrite those expectations.
- Partnering with our AI Transformation Leader on how AI changes work design, job architecture, and team structure across the company.
Own
You will run a small, high-impact HR Operations and strategic HRBP team. The operational foundation is already in place. You inherit it, make sure it stays clean, and evolve it as we scale internationally.
What You Will Personally Build in Year One
Build - but build with the team, not over them. The point is not to arrive with finished answers. It is to bring people into the work, raise their skills along the way, and communicate constantly so the whole team understands what is being built and why.
- The engagement program and the operating rhythm behind it, designed so leaders own the outcomes, not HR
- How remote teams work here, written down and adopted, not aspirational. Recognition that reaches people in every geography and every time zone.
- The employee and leader communications cadence that gives people a clear line of sight to the strategy
- The retention model and the succession plan, including what we do with what they tell us
- The manager development approach for a company where managers rarely see their people and where what it means to manage is being rewritten
- The design of our in-person moments: offsites, team gatherings, and the few times a year people are in a room together
What We Are Looking For
Required
- You have operated teams outside the United States. EOR or owned entities both count. What matters is that you have managed the reality of employing people in other countries, not that you have read about it. We are expanding internationally and the pace is accelerating.
- You have scaled a company through roughly this stage - somewhere in the 500-1000 range, with international arriving partway through. You have seen what breaks. We are building critical AI infrastructure, expanding globally, and the thesis is more output per person from a more distributed, more AI-enabled workforce.
- You are a builder who builds with people, not around them. You have written the framework, run the session, built the thing - recently, with your own hands - and you brought your team along while doing it. You develop people through work, not separate from it.
- You use AI agents in your daily work. This is a filter, not a preference. We are 250+ people on Claude Enterprise, our managers will be running blended human and agent teams in 2027.
- You lead a team and are still close enough to the work to know when it is good.
- You care about making a company a great place to work and you know how to do it when people are distributed across geographies, time zones, and cultures.
Also True of the Right Person
- Comfortable that this is a public company, without needing to have run a proxy. You will not be surprised by comp committee timing, disclosure windows, or audit season, but the CHRO owns that work.
- Coming from a strong mid-sized technology company rather than a large enterprise. Not a rule, but the pattern matters: we need someone who has built in conditions of scarcity, not someone who has run a function with a large team and a large budget already in place.
- Either a first-time VP ready to step up or a second-time VP who wants to build rather than administer. We care about the person, not the number of times they have held the title.
- A strong communicator who over-communicates by instinct. In a remote company, silence is the default and it is corrosive.
This Is Not the Role for You If
- Your strength is running an established function well and you want a bigger version of that
- You need a large team to be effective
- You do not default to building and running POCs
- You want to spend most of your time on executive comp and board work
- You think culture is a benefits problem or an office problem rather than a design problem
How We Will Interview
We will ask you to bring something you built, walk us through the version that did not work, and tell us what you would do differently. We will ask how you use AI in your own work, specifically. And you will spend real time with the HRBPs and HR Ops team, because they will work with you every day and their read matters.
What We Offer
- Competitive compensation and equity package
- Full benefits including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k) with matching
- RSU grants for full-time employees
- ESPP program
- Flexible vacation policy
- Maternity & paternity leave
- MacBook to use for work, plus a generous stipend to personalize your workstation
- Childcare bonus (human children only)
- Fertility treatment and support
- Learning & development program
- Commuter benefits
- A collaborative and transparent culture that supports a healthy work-life balance
Pay Transparency
To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials.
The expected salary range for this role is $210,000 - $230,000 plus 30% target annual bonus and RSUs.
At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.
