HR Manager

HR Manager

CODED — The First Tech & AI Academy in the Arab World

About CODED

CODED is the first tech and AI academy in the Arab world, and the region's go-to place for technology and AI education. We build real technical capability — software engineering, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, and emerging technologies — across individuals, youth, and enterprises.

What we are building is talent density. Not headcount. Not volume. A concentrated pool of genuinely exceptional people, inside CODED and across the market we serve.

We only aspire to work with people who are excellent at what they do, and who raise the standard of everyone around them.

The Role: HR Manager

If talent density is the goal, this is the role that delivers it.

The HR Manager owns the people and administrative backbone of CODED — who we let in, how we hold them to a standard, and whether the systems around them work.

This is a management role, not an execution role. You have a Recruiter and an Admin Officer working for you. Your job is to set the standard, own the deadlines, unblock the team, and step in personally on the things that matter most — not to do their work.

Three domains:

1. Talent — Recruitment, Contractors & Internships
2. Performance Management & Manager Accountability
3. HR Operations, Payroll, Admin & SOPs

I. Talent — Recruitment, Contractors & Internships

You manage a Recruiter. You do not run every search yourself.

Managing the recruitment function

• Own manpower planning with department heads: what we need, when, and why
• Set the hiring standard and define what "good" looks like for each role before the search starts
• Own the deadlines. Time-to-hire is your number, not the Recruiter's excuse.
• Manage, coach, and develop the Recruiter — review their pipelines, their screening quality, and their candidate experience
• Maintain quality control on every shortlist: no weak candidates reach a hiring manager
• Step in personally on senior, sensitive, or stalled searches
• Keep the ATS clean and honest — no ghost pipelines, no stale candidates, no guesswork

Contractors, instructors & freelancers

• Own the link with instructors, freelancers, and contractors — our teaching capacity is a supply chain, not an afterthought
• Manage the full contractor lifecycle: potential → approved → engaged → paid → exited
• Standardise engagement terms, rate cards, and documentation
• Build bench capacity ahead of demand so no programme is ever staffed in a panic

Internships & internal pipeline

• Design and run internal internship programmes when the business needs capacity or a talent pipeline
• Convert strong interns into full hires
• Unblock the team — when a department is stuck for people, it is your job to find the answer, whether that is a hire, a contractor, an intern, or a redistribution

Objective: the right people, in the right seats, on time — delivered through a team you manage.

II. Performance Management & Manager Accountability

This is the domain that is hardest to delegate, and the one you own personally.

• Own the appraisal cycle end to end: goal setting, mid-cycle reviews, evaluations, calibration
• Maintain the performance management system and the integrity of its data
• Hold department managers accountable to their SOPs and to their people responsibilities — firmly and respectfully
• Surface underperformance early with evidence, and coach managers through handling it properly
• Run structured feedback mechanisms: peer surveys, 360s, performance logs
• Turn performance data into decisions — promotion, development, or exit
• Protect the talent-density standard: a strong culture is built by what you tolerate

Objective: performance is measured, discussed, and acted on — not avoided.

III. HR Operations, Payroll, Admin & SOPs

You manage an Admin Officer. You own the system; they run the routine.

• Oversee payroll coordination with the third-party provider — accuracy and timeliness are non-negotiable
• Oversee employee registration, contracts, indemnity, and end-of-service calculations
• Own labour-law compliance, PAM and PIFSS obligations, visa and residency administration
• Manage the Admin Officer: set standards, review output, maintain quality, and develop them
• Oversee office operations, facilities, vendors, and reception
• Own the HR SOP library company-wide — write it, keep it current, enforce it, and hold it to a high quality bar
• Design processes that scale, and automate what should not be manual

Objective: people operations run cleanly and predictably, without escalation.

Why This Role Is Critical

CODED runs on people. Instructors are the supply chain. Employees are the delivery mechanism. Every operational failure in a business like ours traces back to a people process that was left informal.

Without strong HR leadership:

• Hiring becomes slow and reactive, and standards quietly drop.
• Performance conversations never happen.
• Compliance becomes a risk rather than a routine.
• Teams stay blocked waiting for capacity nobody is sourcing.
• Leadership absorbs work that should never reach it.

What We're Looking For

A senior HR professional who:

• Manages rather than executes — has run a small HR team and gotten results through them
• Is comfortable owning a deadline they do not personally control
• Can hold managers senior to them accountable, respectfully and firmly
• Thinks in systems and processes, not policies for their own sake
• Is extremely structured and holds a high quality bar on documentation and SOPs
• Understands Kuwaiti labour law, PAM, and PIFSS in practice
• Naturally spots where a process is missing and builds it
• Uses AI tools to make HR faster and better — we expect it

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in HR, business administration, or a related field
• 5+ years in HR, including at least 2 managing HR or recruitment staff
• Has owned a full recruitment function and a full appraisal cycle
• Experience managing a contractor or freelancer population, not only permanent staff
• Working knowledge of Kuwaiti labour law and government portals
• Fluent Arabic and English
• Comfortable with Airtable, Notion, Google Workspace, and HRIS platforms
• CIPD, SHRM, or equivalent certification is an advantage

This is a high-responsibility role for someone who wants to build and protect the people backbone of a company that is serious about talent density.