Sr. HR Business Partner-R&D

TrendAI™, the global AI security leader and enterprise business unit of Trend Micro, empowers organizations with full AI visibility and consolidated security that inspires confidence, drives innovation, and eliminates risk.

At TrendAI™, we’re always seeking exceptional talent; people who want to collaborate with the best and push boundaries together. Here, your work goes beyond building a career. You will help protect what matters and play a vital role in shaping a safer, more trustworthy AI-powered future.

AI Fearlessly.

Role Summary:

We're building next-generation security products that require deep systems thinking, and we need an equally thoughtful HR partner.

This role supports Engineering leadership within R&D Americas, reporting to the VP, People Americas. You'll own talent management, organization design, employee relations, and culture/engagement for a growing engineering organization, with close partnership with Product leadership on cross-functional priorities. You'll be a partner who asks hard questions: Why do we level engineers the way we do? Does our compensation banding reflect what the market demands and what makes sense for career progression? How do we keep a high-performing, fast-moving team healthy as we scale?

This is a role for someone who thrives when things are undefined. You'll have the autonomy to shape practices, the expectation to challenge assumptions, and a data first mindset to back up your recommendations.

Location: This is a hybrid role based out of our Austin, TX office and requires in-office presence three days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday).

Key Responsibilities:

Talent Management & Career Development

• Own talent planning and development conversations for R&D Americas leadership and key ICs as the organization scales.

• Partner with engineering leadership to define, iterate, and communicate leveling frameworks. Question existing title and compensation bands; recommend changes backed by market data, internal equity analysis, and career progression logic.

• Partner with corporate HR to translate global talent programs into regional execution, ensuring promotion cycles, performance calibration, and compensation reviews are transparent, data-driven, and defensible in the R&D context.

Organization Design & Scaling

• Lead org design conversations as R&D grows. Challenge structural assumptions - how teams are organized, where decision-making authority sits, how to maintain speed and clarity at scale.

• Work directly with engineering leadership to anticipate org gaps, redundancies, and opportunities before they become friction points. Maintain close partnership with Product leadership on cross-functional coordination.

• Think systemically about how org decisions cascade: a change in how teams are staffed affects career paths, compensation equity, and hiring strategy.

Employee Relations & Culture

• Be the strategic voice on employee relations issues in R&D. Own investigations, conflict resolution, and broader patterns that suggest cultural or structural problems.

• Actively listen to R&D teams; translate feedback into insights about what's working, what's breaking, and what needs to change.

• Partner on culture initiatives that reflect TrendAI's values (curiosity, innovation, bias toward action) within an R&D context where the work is technically complex and security-critical.

Strategic Partnerships & Change

• Work directly with engineering leadership and finance to align R&D's people practices with broader company strategy. Maintain close partnership with Product on talent and organizational matters that impact cross-functional execution.

• Drive initiatives that require influence without authority - leveling redesigns, new comp structures, new hiring approaches - by building business cases, piloting, and learning.

• Be a translator: help corporate HR understand Engineering's specific needs; help Engineering leadership understand HR constraints and opportunities. Coordinate closely with Product on shared organizational priorities.

Analytics & Insights

• Use data to ground decisions. Track leveling distribution, compensation equity, retention by level/team, promotion velocity, and hiring pipeline health. Spot trends before they become crises.

• Build dashboards and narratives that help leadership see what's actually happening vs. what they assume is happening.

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of HRBP or strategic HR experience, with at least 5+ years supporting R&D, engineering, or technical organizations.

• Deep experience in a tech company environment. You understand how engineers are developed, motivated, and leveled. You've navigated the unique tension between individual contributor depth and management growth.

• Expertise in leveling frameworks, compensation banding, and career architecture. You've built, redesigned, or significantly improved these in a previous role and can speak to the trade-offs.

• Strong analytical and data-driven mindset. You're comfortable with AI tools, Excel, and dashboards. You ask "what does the data actually show?" before making recommendations.

• Track record of change management and influence. You've driven HR initiatives that required buy-in from skeptical or busy leaders. You know how to pilot, learn, and iterate.

• Demonstrated curiosity and intellectual humility. You ask "why are we doing this?" and you're genuinely interested in the answer, whether it's valid or just "because we always have." You're comfortable challenging assumptions, including your own.

• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills. You can write a clear business case, facilitate a difficult conversation, and influence leaders who think differently than you do.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Global HR experience. You've navigated multi-region or multi-country HR challenges and understand how practices need to vary by market.

• Experience with rapid scaling. You've grown an organization from 30 to 300 engineers (or similar) and learned what breaks when you scale.

• Familiarity with AI/ML, security, or other complex technical domains. Not required, but helpful for context-setting conversations with leadership.

• Prior experience designing or improving promotion/leveling processes. You've seen what works and what creates bottlenecks.

• Experience with compensation equity analysis and market benchmarking.

What We Offer You:

You're important to us. What matters to you, matters to us too. TrendAI provides benefit options for you and your family.

• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision insurance

• Life insurance

• Short & Long Term Disability

• Pre-partum, maternity, parental and medical leave

• Mental Health Wellness Program

• Adoption Assistance

• Wellness Incentive

• Pet Insurance

• 401(k) with company match

• Paid Time Off

• 14 Annual Holidays

• Tuition Assistance

• Employee Resource Groups

We offer competitive compensation with bonus opportunity tied to company performance, along with room to enhance your skills through ongoing learning and broad technological opportunities. Achieving work-life balance is a priority, complemented by team activities, fostering an environment rooted in equity, inclusion, and collaboration, that is reflected in both our culture and our work.

Be Passionate. Be Innovative. Be a Trender.

This position does not offer sponsorship for work permit applications or renewals, either now or in the future. Candidates must be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for employment-based visa sponsorship, both currently and moving forward. The company will not sponsor applicants for U.S. work visa status for this role (including, but not limited to, H-1B, L-1, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, F-1, J-1, OPT, CPT, or any other employment-based visa).

At Trend Micro, we embrace change, empower people, and encourage innovation in a connected world. Our diversity and multicultural workforce are key contributing factors to our success across the globe. Trend Micro provides equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. Trend Micro does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy and childbirth or related medical conditions, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care leave status, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.