Director, People Technology

Summary

The Director, People Technology is the technology lead for the Chobani People Team and is accountable for the strategy, roadmap, delivery, and performance of our People technology ecosystem. This is a builder role. We are looking for a hands-on leader who will set the direction, work alongside the team, challenge conventional approaches, and turn new ideas into practical, scalable solutions. The right leader stays current on the HR technology market, brings forward new possibilities, and knows how to translate innovation into practical business value. They will thrive in a fast-paced, growing organization where priorities evolve and leaders are expected to think differently.

The role leads the People Technology team and partners closely with IT, Information Security, the People Service Center, Payroll, People Analytics, Legal, Compliance, Finance, Procurement, business leaders, and external partners. 

Responsibilities

Strategy, roadmap and innovation 

• Own the technology experience across the employee lifecycle, ensuring People platforms are intuitive, connected, scalable, and designed around the needs of employees, managers, and the People Team. 
• Define and deliver a multi-year People technology strategy and roadmap aligned with People Team and business priorities. 
• Assess the technology ecosystem, identify gaps and opportunities, and recommend whether to build, buy, optimize, integrate, or retire solutions. 
• Stay close to market trends, emerging platforms, AI, and automation; translate relevant developments into practical pilots, investments, and roadmap decisions. 
• Establish clear intake, prioritization, and governance for enhancements and new requests, balancing value, risk, stability, technical debt, and capacity. 
• Create clear business cases and executive recommendations that communicate outcomes, tradeoffs, dependencies, cost, and risk. 

Hands-on product and platform leadership 

• Serve as the product and portfolio owner for People Technology, including SAP SuccessFactors and the broader ecosystem of platforms supporting the employee lifecycle. 
• Set direction and ensure effective delivery across platform design, configuration, integrations, testing, releases, adoption, support, and continuous improvement, working through the People Technology team and enterprise partners. 
• Work alongside the team on critical initiatives and complex issues by shaping solutions, reviewing configurations and testing, removing barriers, and supporting stabilization. 
• Partner with IT to strengthen integrations, monitoring, data flows, and root-cause resolution across the technology environment. 
• Ensure foundation data, organizational structures, workflows, permissions, and configurations support accurate operations, reporting, analytics, and downstream systems. 
• Establish and govern the People Technology support model, including clear support tiers, handoffs, service expectations, escalation paths, and accountability with the People Support Center. 

Transformation, governance and operations 

• Lead the People Technology workstream for enterprise initiatives such as organizational change, acquisitions, international expansion, workforce transformation, and major system implementations. 
• Challenge existing processes and assumptions; simplify and redesign the work before introducing new technology or customization. 
• Embed change management into delivery by aligning stakeholders, assessing impacts, preparing users, and driving sustained adoption. 
• Establish governance, data ownership, controls, access management, and decision rights in partnership with People, IT, Security, Legal, Compliance, Payroll, and People Analytics. 
• Ensure platforms and processes meet privacy, security, audit, records-retention, SOX, and other applicable requirements. 
• Lead technology evaluations and RFPs, and manage vendor roadmaps, performance, contracts, budgets, renewals, risk, and value realization. 

Team leadership 

• Build, coach, and develop a high-performing People Technology team with clear ownership and strong product, technical, and customer capabilities. 
• Set priorities and expectations while staying close enough to the work to pressure-test decisions, solve problems, and help the team deliver.
•  Create a culture of curiosity, experimentation, partnership, accountability, and disciplined execution. 

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive experience in HR technology, HR systems, product management, or related People functions, including significant leadership responsibility in a complex organization. 
• 7+ years leading teams, major HR technology initiatives, or enterprise platform portfolios across strategy, delivery, governance, and stakeholder outcomes. 
• Deep strategic experience leading SAP SuccessFactors and broader People Technology ecosystems, with sufficient hands-on platform expertise to guide solution design, challenge configuration decisions, evaluate tradeoffs, and effectively lead technical teams and partners. 
• Demonstrated success building or materially improving an HR technology ecosystem, not simply maintaining one. 
• Experience selecting, implementing, integrating, optimizing, and retiring technology across a broader HR platform portfolio. 
• Ability to influence senior leaders, translate business needs into technology decisions, and communicate complex tradeoffs clearly. 
• Experience leading cross-functional transformation with People, IT, Security, Payroll, Legal, Compliance, Finance, Procurement, and external partners. 
• Strong knowledge of HR data governance, privacy, security, controls, audit requirements, and records retention. 
• Experience with Jira Service Management, ServiceNow, or a similar service-management platform. 
• Experience with AI-enabled HR tools and workflow automation preferred; payroll and timekeeping integrations, including ADP or UKG, are a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience.