People and Culture Partner

About Us

Mastered has been on a mission to help professionals transform themselves through work since 2014, supporting more than 8,000 creatives, makers and leaders along the way.

People development isn’t a support function for us, it is the work. Our programmes are built on coaching, reflection and human-first design, and we hold ourselves to the same standard internally. That commitment has helped us build a genuinely strong culture, reflected in a team NPS of 78 and recognition as a Best Place to Work by GamesIndustry.biz two years running.

But what has worked up to now has been driven largely by close working relationships, high trust, and founder-led care. At 23 permanent staff and around 50 core freelancers, we’re at a clear inflection point: small enough that culture still feels personal, and big enough that it won’t stay that way without intent.

This role exists because we don’t want to scale without consideration.

We’re looking for a People and Culture Partner who is excited by the challenge of taking something that already works - our culture, ways of working and coaching ethos - and helping us make it durable, explicit and scalable, without losing what makes it human. This isn’t about installing “best practice” or fixing problems - it’s about turning our approach to people into a long-term advantage as we grow.

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Your Mission

To help us all grow - well.

You will steward our culture while shaping the People systems and leadership practices that enable Mastered to scale sustainably as a values-led, remote-first business - and be a place where people do some of the best work of their lives.

This is a senior, director-level People role, designed for someone who has already led or advised People strategy at a similar stage of growth.

We’re not looking for a mid-level People Partner or HR Manager stepping up. This role exists because we want experienced judgment, pattern recognition, and the confidence to make trade-offs - particularly at the point where founder-led culture needs to become explicit and scalable without losing its humanity.

The role is fractional by design, not because the work is small, but because the value comes from strategic leadership, sponsorship and enablement, rather than day-to-day ownership of delivery.

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What You’ll Be Doing

You will work as a senior partner to the founders and leadership team, with autonomy to design, influence and embed People systems that enable Mastered to scale sustainably. You’ll advise and challenge at a strategic level, then support leaders to own and live those systems day to day.

You will drive three areas:

• Culture and experience, i.e. how it feels to work here. Help shape the day-to-day experience of working at Mastered - our behaviours, values, ways of working, wellbeing, inclusion, communication, and team rituals.
• Growth and development, i.e. how people grow and do their best work here. Design systems that help people do their best work – performance management, career progression, leadership development, and learning opportunities.
• Functional foundations and People operations, i.e. the practical stuff that keeps us running smoothly. Iterate and build the structures and processes that enable Mastered to function, things like organisational design, roles and responsibilities, compensation and benefits, data and insights, talent acquisition, onboarding/offboarding.

Specifically, in the next 12 months you will have created with us…

• Clear, shared expectations of leadership and management across the business
• A long-term L+D strategy and career progression framework that supports performance, growth and wellbeing
• A competitive and values-aligned People Deal
• Strong people capability within our team of leads
• A scalable approach to supporting freelancers alongside employees
• People metrics and a HRIS system that is fit for purpose

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What You’ll Need

• Proven experience in strategic HR/people leadership in remote-first organisations and evolving environments (we are particularly keen on people who have scaled beyond 70 to 150/250).
• Experience in running or directly advising fast-paced, rapidly growing small businesses (ideally we would find someone with, or is working towards, a coaching qualification – we hold a coaching approach in very high regard).
• Expertise in organisational design, learning and development and benefits design - with a demonstrable focus on being user-first and data driven
• Strong understanding of freelance workforce dynamics
• Comfortable working in a fractional capacity, with an understanding that this role will need to ebb and flow as the business changes.

This role is not a fit if you’re looking for a full-time, operational HR leadership role with established systems.

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What You’ll Get

• An initial 12-month contract, averaging 4 days per month, with scope to flex up during key phases. (We expect 6-8 days a month in the first 2-3 months, for example).
• Compensation between £500-800 a day based on experience - scope to review rate as impact and time commitment evolve
• Massive flexibility as a fully-remote company: work days and hours that suit you and your colleagues
• To work with female founders who genuinely believe people strategy is business strategy
• A role with significant opportunity for impact - to shape how a values-led, remote-first organisation grows sustainably.
• Freedom to design, influence and coach, rather than firefight
• To hire a people assistant immediately to support day-to-day tasks

This boils down to work with meaning and a purpose that matters, a team you'll love to work with and learn from, and the freedom and responsibility to tackle great problems in a way that aligns with your strengths.

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How to Apply

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