[Hiring] HR Lead @Prism Studio

Role Description

In a small studio, people decisions show up directly in the game. Every month a critical role stays open, features slip, other developers carry extra load, and burnout risk rises. A strong hire with poor onboarding still takes months to become productive, or leaves early. And when people have nowhere neutral to bring a frustration, small issues grow quietly until they affect the whole team.

You'll be the person who prevents that. You'll plan hiring ahead of production needs instead of reacting after someone leaves, build processes that are quick and thorough, and help create a team where people feel safe to speak up. Research on teams consistently links that kind of psychological safety to better performance, and we take it seriously.

What you'll do:

• Run full-cycle recruitment across the studio, partnering with hiring managers from the first intake conversation to the signed offer.
• Plan hiring ahead of production needs, working with leads to spot gaps.
• Translate HR needs into clear actions and write role descriptions that attract talent.
• Keep the candidate pipeline moving and give candidates timely feedback.
• Negotiate offers and find the right balance when negotiating with new hires.
• Build the structure behind our recruitment processes: clear role requirements, consistent interview stages, fair technical assessments, and scorecards.
• Own and improve our ATS workflows, candidate experience, and recruiting metrics.
• Coach managers on interviewing, decision-making, and day-to-day HR policies and tools.
• Benchmark salaries and build offers that match the market, fit the budget, and stay consistent with current team members' arrangements.
• Own employee onboarding to ensure new people have access, context, and support from their very first day.
• Manage the operational side of HR, including employment contracts, payroll processes, forecasts, vacation and leave management, offboarding, benefits, and employee records.
• Handle terminations professionally and fairly, in line with labour law and company policy.
• Be the go-to HR partner in the studio: approachable, trusted, and hands-on with day-to-day topics.
• Recognise unhealthy dynamics and help people move toward ownership, direct conversation, and problem-solving.
• Lead initiatives on engagement, well-being, inclusion, and psychological safety.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in HR, including time at medium-to-large tech companies.
• Solid full-cycle recruitment experience in tech or games, including technical and creative roles.
• A track record of running hiring processes that are both fast and rigorous, with structured interviews and scorecards.
• Hands-on experience with salary benchmarking, offer design, and negotiation.
• Experience across HR beyond recruitment, such as onboarding, employee relations, and HR operations.
• Confidence handling conflict and difficult conversations neutrally, with a working understanding of team dynamics.
• Experience working with dynamic candidate pipelines.
• Fluent English, great communication skills.
• Use AI tools daily and are curious about improving workflows and processes with them.
• Experience with Atlassian suite, Jira, Confluence, and comfortable reading Jira reports and Projects.
• Care about games and players, and want the people you hire to feel the same.

Requirements

• Comfort taking the lead and pushing HR improvements: autonomous, organised, and good at prioritising.
• Approachable and trustworthy, with good judgement about when to raise something.

Nice to have

• Experience in a fully remote, multi-country team.
• Knowledge of Maltese employment law or of hiring across several EU countries.
• Training or certification in coaching, mediation, or conflict resolution.
• Experience with HR analytics, such as engagement surveys or attrition and absence tracking.
• You play games, ideally multiplayer or competitive shooters.

Life at Prism Studio

We work as one unit with one common goal. Our purpose is to build a cross-disciplinary team where everyone is self-managing, wherever they are in the world. We collaborate in an open, friendly way, as a global team built on talent and communication.