ColoredCow is a 30-person bootstrapped software company. Offices in Gurgaon, Tehri, and Dwarahat. 11 years old. No HR department — ever.
AI is rewriting the rules of our entire industry. Tasks that took developers days now take hours. The value of writing code is declining. The value of understanding problems, exercising judgment, and working with people is increasing. This changes everything about who we hire, how we develop people, and what roles look like 12 months from now.
Over the past 90 days, the founder has built a People & Culture system from scratch — not a plan, but an actual working system: a five-lens framework for analyzing every team member (applied to seven people so far), 40 responsibility areas mapped across five team members, a hiring manual with a problem-first university pipeline where students get real problems and AI tool access instead of lectures, documented culture patterns from real observations, and an appraisal process tested through the hardest conversations this company has ever had.
The system exists. We need someone sharp to help run it and grow into owning it.
What You'd Actually Do (From Week One)
Coordinate the hiring pipeline across university channels and direct hires — including evaluating how candidates think with AI, not just about AI. Track the status of every open role and flag when things stall. Help prepare candidate assessments and interview summaries. Manage the onboarding checklist, including AI tools setup on day one for every new hire. Maintain the team health pulse — weekly submissions, monthly reviews. Keep the documentation alive as the system evolves. Travel to Tehri and Dwarahat regularly — because remote teams managed only by video are not managed. Use AI tools yourself, daily, as the default — because you can’t build an AI-native people function if you’re not AI-native yourself.
What this becomes: if you’re good, this grows into full ownership of the People & Culture function at a company doubling its revenue over the next two years — through one of the most significant industry shifts in a generation. You’d be building your career at the intersection of people and AI, in a company that takes both more seriously than companies ten times its size.
This Role Is Not For You If
You’re applying to every open HR position you can find — we want someone who read this posting and thought ‘this is different.’ You’re uncomfortable working directly with the CEO of a company — there’s no middle layer here. You need detailed instructions for every task — the system provides the framework, but you’ll figure out the daily rhythm yourself. You think AI tools are a fad or something you’ll ‘get to eventually’ — at ColoredCow, AI is how we work, starting your first day. You want a predictable 9-to-5 in one city — this role involves travel to hill offices and the pace of a company mid-transformation. Or you studied HR because it seemed like an easy career path — this is the hardest version of this work you’ll find at any company this size.
What You Need (And What You Don't)
What you need: a humanities, psychology, or social science background (or equivalent curiosity — we don’t filter by degree). Sharp written and verbal communication — you’ll be drafting assessments, maintaining documents, and communicating with candidates and team members daily. The instinct to ask ‘why is this done this way?’ before accepting how things are. Comfort with AI tools — not expertise, but genuine curiosity and willingness to make them part of how you work. An interest in startups and how organizations actually work — not the textbook version, the real version.
What you don’t need: HR experience, an MBA, or knowledge of HRIS platforms. We’ll teach you everything. We can’t teach you curiosity or judgment.
If you’ve read Work Rules by Laszlo Bock or Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, you’ll recognize what we’ve built here. If you haven’t, they’ll be on your desk on day one.
The Details
Experience: 0–1 year. We’re looking for sharpness, not seniority.
Location: Gurgaon, with regular travel to Tehri and Dwarahat. Our hill offices are not satellite offices — they are where a significant part of the team lives and works. Presence there matters.
Compensation: ₹4–6L. Early career, below what a large company would pay. What we offer instead: ownership of an entire function that no other company this size would trust a fresher with, direct exposure to the CEO, a documented system to learn from and build on, and a front-row seat to what happens when a company navigates the AI transition honestly — not with slogans, but with real structural change.
How Our Hiring Process Works (And Why)
Our hiring process includes a conversation with the CEO, a short take-home assignment, and a paid working period where you join the team for [one week / two weeks] on real work. We believe both sides should know what the daily reality feels like before making it permanent.
Before You Apply — A Two-Way Introduction (Optional)
Most hiring processes are one-directional: the company asks, you answer. We’d rather start as a conversation.
Take a short quiz. We’ve put together 7 questions based on real situations we deal with in this role. No right answers — we’re interested in how you think. It’s optional, but completing it gives us a much richer picture of you than a resume alone. It helps you too — if the questions excite you, this role is probably right. If they feel like a chore, that’s worth knowing before either of us invests more time.
Take the quiz
Ask us anything. If you have questions about ColoredCow, about this role, about what the first week actually looks like, about what we mean by “AI-native” — write to [email protected] before you even apply. Your questions tell us as much about you as your answers do. We’d rather you make an informed decision than a hopeful one.
How To Apply
Hit the Apply Now button below — yes, the form that pops up looks like every other job application form. We’re a software company that hasn’t redesigned its own career page yet (if that bothers you, good — you might be the kind of person who fixes things like that around here). The field that matters most is ‘Why do you think you are fit for this job?’ — that’s the one we actually read first. Or skip the form entirely and write to [email protected] with the subject line ‘Application: P&C Associate — [Your Name]’. Either way, tell us what you noticed about ColoredCow that made you want to apply, and one question you’d ask on your first day. Your answer matters more to us than your resume.
