Manager: Associate Experience

About Matasma

Matasma builds Intelligent Decision Systems that help medium and large enterprises connect data, decisions, and outcomes. We combine strategy, AI, and technology to enable CXOs, finance leaders, and business teams to move from reporting to real-time decision intelligence.

We’re a fast-growing consulting and product organization that blends deep business insight with intelligent automation, LLM-powered analytics, and AI-driven planning tools. The quality of our thinking depends entirely on the people who do it — which is why this role exists.

Role Overview

As Manager: Associate Experience, you will own how it feels to work at Matasma — from a candidate’s first conversation with us, through onboarding, growth, and every ritual in between.

This is a hands-on generalist role with genuine ownership of people and culture. You will design and run the systems that let a fast-scaling consulting and product organization stay deliberate about how it hires, develops, and retains talent. In a firm where associates are deployed on demanding client engagements, you are the person making sure they feel supported, challenged, and clear about where they are headed.

You will work directly with the Founder and practice leads, turning an intentional culture into repeatable practice rather than leaving it to chance.

Key Responsibilities

1. Talent Acquisition & Onboarding

• Own the full recruitment cycle — role definition, sourcing, screening, interview design, and offer closure — across consulting, engineering, and product roles.
• Build a pipeline of analytics and technology talent through campus partnerships, referrals, and professional networks.
• Design an onboarding experience that gets new associates contributing quickly, with clarity on expectations, tools, and their first engagement.
• Track hiring metrics such as time-to-hire, offer acceptance, and early attrition, and act on what they reveal.

2. Culture, Engagement & Internal Communication

• Translate Matasma’s values into everyday practice — team rituals, recognition, offsites, and forums that connect associates across client engagements.
• Run listening mechanisms including engagement surveys, skip-levels, and exit conversations, and convert the findings into concrete action.
• Serve as a trusted first point of contact for associates on concerns, conflicts, and grievances, handling sensitive matters with discretion and fairness.
• Drive internal communication so that company direction, wins, and changes reach everyone consistently.

3. Performance, Growth & Learning

• Run the performance management cycle — goal setting, mid-year and annual reviews, calibration, and feedback quality.
• Build career frameworks and competency maps that make progression paths explicit across practice areas.
• Identify capability gaps and curate learning programmes spanning consulting skills, platform certifications, and AI and analytics fluency.
• Support managers in becoming better coaches through enablement, templates, and direct guidance on difficult conversations.

4. People Operations & Compliance

• Own the employee lifecycle end to end, from confirmation and transfers to promotions, exits, and full-and-final settlement.
• Maintain accurate people data and HRIS hygiene, and generate the workforce reporting leadership relies on.
• Draft, publish, and keep current HR policies covering leave, workplace conduct, POSH, and hybrid working.
• Ensure statutory compliance under applicable Indian labour regulations, working with finance and external advisors where required.

5. Total Rewards & Workforce Planning

• Benchmark compensation against market data and support annual review and increment cycles.
• Administer benefits, insurance, and wellbeing programmes, and improve them based on what associates actually use.
• Partner with practice leads on headcount planning, bench utilisation, and staffing forecasts tied to the engagement pipeline.
• Build simple dashboards on attrition, engagement, and capability so that people decisions are made on evidence.

Key Skills & Attributes

• Genuine empathy paired with the judgement to hold a firm line when the situation calls for it.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with credibility across associates and senior leadership alike.
• High integrity and sound handling of confidential information.
• Comfort building processes from first principles rather than inheriting them.
• Analytical mindset, with the ability to use people data to make a case and measure impact.
• Comfort working in a startup or high-velocity environment where priorities shift.
• Familiarity with HRIS, ATS, and modern people-analytics tooling is a plus.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Human Resources, Business, Psychology, or a related field; an MBA or PGDM in HR is preferred.
• 4–8 years of progressive HR experience, including time as a generalist or HR business partner.
• Prior experience in consulting, professional services, or a high-growth technology firm is strongly preferred.
• Working knowledge of Indian labour law and statutory compliance.
• Demonstrated ownership of at least two of: talent acquisition, performance management, or culture and engagement.

Location & Work Mode

• In Bangalore office
• Reports to: Founder