About kaiko

Delivering high quality cancer care is complex; specialists form a view of each patient's condition by reasoning across different data - CT scans, genomics context, treatment history and clinical notes.

Current AI are powerful within domains but fall short when it comes to reasoning across data or domain areas. kaiko.w, our AI assistant for oncology, aims to equip every clinician with a full understanding of their patients, helping them to reason across data as they assess each case.

We’re building this in close collaboration with the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) and a growing network of hospitals and research centers. We’ve raised significant long-term funding and have nearly doubled our team over the past year. We’re now 80+ people representing 25 nationalities, based across our offices in Zurich and Amsterdam

About the role

At Kaiko, we’re scaling fast—new countries, new hires, new complexities. As our team grows, so does the challenge of delivering a consistently excellent employee experience while staying compliant across jurisdictions. That’s where you come in.

As our People Operations Specialist, you’ll take ownership of all People processes in Switzerland and the Netherlands. From payroll prep and contracts to onboarding and benefits, you’ll be the operational backbone that keeps our People systems running smoothly. Your work ensures our team can focus on building cutting-edge health AI, knowing their People needs are in good hands.

This is a rare opportunity to build and refine scalable People infrastructure in a mission-driven startup. You’ll work across teams, own your domain, and help shape how we grow, efficiently, compliantly, and with care.

You will be based in either The Netherlands or Switzerland, with the expectation of spending at least 50% of your time at the office.

Some areas of responsibility

• Own and manage day-to-day People operations across our Swiss and Dutch entities, including contracts, payroll prep, and benefits.

• Maintain accurate employee data in our HRIS and ensure compliance with local labor regulations.

• Support onboarding and offboarding processes, acting as a go-to contact for People-related queries.

• Collaborate with finance, office operations, and external partners (e.g. EOR, benefits providers) to keep People processes smooth and scalable.

About you

• 1–2 years of experience in People Operations, HR coordination, or a related role.

• Familiar with employment regulations in either Switzerland or the Netherlands (ideally both).

• Comfortable working with HR systems, payroll processes, and employee documentation.

You bring:

• A strong attention to detail and a sense of ownership over your work.

• A service mindset: you’re proactive, helpful, and professional in how you support others.

• A mindset for improving processes and enabling scale in a growing organization.

Nice to have:

• German or Dutch language skills to better support local teams.

We are excited to gather a broad range of perspectives in our team, as we believe it will help us build better products to support a broader set of people. If you’re excited about us but don’t fit every single qualification, we still encourage you to apply: we’ve had incredible team members join us who didn’t check every box!

Why kaiko
At kaiko, we believe the best ideas come from collaboration, ownership and ambition. We’ve built a team of international experts where your work has direct impact. Here’s what we value:

• Ownership: You’ll have the autonomy to set your own goals, make critical decisions, and see the direct impact of your work.

• Collaboration: You’ll have to approach disagreement with curiosity, build on common ground and create solutions together.

• Ambition: You’ll be surrounded by people who set high standards for themselves and others, who see obstacles as opportunities, and who are relentless in their work to create better outcomes for patients.

 
In addition, we offer:

• An attractive and competitive salary, a good pension plan and 25 vacation days per year.

• Great offsites and team events to strengthen the team and celebrate successes together.

• A EUR 1000 learning and development budget to help you grow.

• Autonomy to do your work the way that works best for you, whether you have a kid or prefer early mornings.

• An annual commuting subsidy.

Our interview process

Our interview process is designed to assess mutual fit across skills, motivation, and values. It typically includes the following steps:

• Screening call: A short conversation to align on your motivation, career goals, and initial fit for the role.

• Technical interview: A deep dive into your problem-solving approach through a technical challenge, case study, or role-specific scenario.

• Final (onsite) executive conversation: A discussion with a member of the executive team focused on long-term alignment, cultural fit, and shared expectations for impact.