About the role
POSITION SUMMARY:
As the Shared Services Manager for People Operations, India, you will lead and scale Harness's India-based People Operations shared services function. You'll build, manage, and develop a team responsible for onboarding, offboarding, compliance administration, HRIS data integrity, and Workday operations, while serving as an India-based Workday super-user following our December 2026 go-live. You will also lead India-based coordination of U.S. H-1B and green card case administration, partnering closely with Harness' U.S. based People Operations team.
The ideal candidate is a player coach and combines proven people-management experience with genuine hands-on Workday expertise, is comfortable building scalable processes in an ambiguous, high-growth environment, and can represent India's operational needs to Harness’ global People Operations team and cross-functional stakeholders.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Hire, lead, coach, and develop a growing India-based People Operations shared services team, setting goals, KPIs, and SLAs for ticket resolution and case management
- Own end-to-end accountability for ticket SLA performance across the global ticketing system; build escalation procedures and reporting for leadership
- Drive India employment-law compliance for People Operations processes, updating policies and procedures as regulations evolve
- Ensure annual compliance training for the India location
- Partner with Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, and IT leadership to design and continuously improve onboarding and offboarding processes for India-based new hires and interns
- Own HR data integrity strategy within Workday, partnering with the broader People Operations team on India-specific configuration
- Serve as the senior India-based Workday super-user following go-live: lead troubleshooting, validate India-specific migrated data (offboarding records, change letters, EPF/supplemental leave, immigration documentation), and reduce dependency on external implementation partners
- Assist employees with obtaining travel visas for U.S. business travel
- Lead India-based coordination for U.S. H-1B and green card (PERM) case administration under the direction of Harness’ U.S. based People Operations team.
- Partner with People Business Partners to structure and absorb transactional work appropriately, freeing PBP capacity for higher-value partnering
- Represent India's process and staffing needs in the broader global shared-services and Workday transformation
- Manage escalations and complex employee issues, exercising judgment on when to involve legal, compliance, or senior leadership
- Deliver timely and accurate ticket resolution alongside the global People Operations team. Every team member dedicates a % of their time to resolving tickets and, by doing so, stays current on opportunities and delivers an exceptional employee experience
ABOUT YOU
- 7+ years of HR/People Operations experience, including at least 2+ years directly managing a team
- 4+ years of hands-on Workday experience
- Demonstrated experience building or scaling a shared-services or HR operations function
- Experience working in a global, matrixed environment, with an ability to handle complex problems independently
- Comfortable operating as a subject-matter expert and stakeholder into a cross-functional systems implementation project, not just as an end user of HR systems
- Excellent communication, coaching, and stakeholder-management skills
- Prior experience supporting or overseeing U.S. immigration processes (e.g., H-1B, green card/PERM) preferred
- High degree of discretion and judgment handling sensitive personal, immigration-related, and compliance documentation
- Excited to build and lead the employee-facing operations function for Harness's India presence, including driving our values internally and externally
- Ability to give and receive feedback from stakeholders and cross-functional partners and translate it into process improvements
- Highly organized and proactive, able to balance high-volume operational leadership with strategic project contributions