A company that works on one problem
Proventa builds software so that a good manufacturer does not lose an order to a worse one with a larger sales team. The team is small, on site in Seoul, and early. One product is live. Most of the scaffolding around a company — how we hire, how we give feedback, what happens when someone is stuck — is still a set of conversations rather than a system.
That is the job. Not a corporate HR program imported from a firm of three hundred. The same four principles we already use as a hiring lens, turned into how people actually join, work, and leave.
The role
You will work with whoever is doing the work — engineering, the people in factories, the office — as a partner on people decisions, not as a ticket queue. Some days that is designing how we run a search. Some days it is sitting with two people who should have spoken a week earlier. Some days it is looking at whether we are about to hire a title instead of a problem.
You will hold both sides of the ledger: help people get better at the work, and notice early when the work or the person is the wrong fit. At this size those two things cannot live in different departments.
Core responsibilities
- Own hiring for the open seats: write what the work is, run the process, and stop a search that is about to select for polish over judgment.
- Build the lightest processes that still work — feedback, onboarding, how a person finds out where they stand — and throw out the ones we copied without using.
- Advise on team shape as we add the next person. A hire is an organizational decision, not only a résumé.
- Coach individuals and the people leading them. Be the person someone can come to before a problem hardens.
- Handle the downside with discretion: performance, interpersonal conflict, the rare case that needs a clean record and a plain sentence.
- Keep the few people numbers that matter honest. Headcount plans that do not match the work are not a strategy.
What we value
- Autonomy in ambiguity. There is no playbook to administer. You will write the first version and check whether it is true.
- Emotional precision. Warmth without fog; directness without performance.
- Comfort finishing open-ended work. A “people initiative” that never ships is a meeting.
- A bias for the four principles: problem over title, reversible decisions without ceremony, human checks on machine drafts, saying what you cannot do early.
- Discretion that survives a small room. Everyone can hear the walls.
What we require
- Three or more years doing people work that had consequences — hiring, employee relations, or building how a team actually operates — not only running a tool.
- Evidence you can move in a fast, outcome-oriented environment without waiting for a committee.
- Korean and English strong enough for hiring conversations and hard ones.
- Ability to work on site in Seoul, full time. Four or five days in the room is the job.
How to apply
Write to people@proventainc.com with “Careers — People Partner” in the subject line.
Tell us three things: something you built or fixed in a company of people, end to end; why this problem rather than another one; how to reach you. A CV is welcome. We read everything and reply either way.