HR Lead

HR Lead 

Heptic Arena — Full-Time — Remote (Europe)

About Prism Studio

Prism Studio is a Malta-based game development studio making bold, player-first games. We're a small, cross-disciplinary team working remotely across Europe, with a culture built on ownership, trust and self-management.

Our first title, Heptic Arena, is a third-person PvPvE arena shooter set in an intergalactic game show. We're building it with our community through closed playtests on the road to Early Access.

Why this role matters

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

You'll run full-cycle recruitment across the studio, partnering with hiring managers from the first intake conversation to the signed offer. You'll plan hiring ahead of production needs, working with leads to spot gaps. You'll know the specifics of the games industry and how tech people work, and how to approach them in a way that respects their time and craft.

We need an experienced person who can translate HR needs into clear actions and write role descriptions that attract talent. You'll keep the candidate pipeline moving and give candidates timely feedback. The role requires negotiation skills and experience closing offers, so you can find the right balance when negotiating with new hires. You'll also build the structure behind our recruitment processes: clear role requirements, consistent interview stages, fair technical assessments and scorecards.

You'll own and improve our ATS workflows, candidate experience and recruiting metrics, and coach managers on interviewing, decision-making and day-to-day HR policies and tools.

With market insight and real knowledge of the games and tech industry, you'll benchmark salaries and build offers that match the market, fit the budget and stay consistent with current team members' arrangements.

You'll own employee onboarding so new people have access, context and support from their very first day, and become productive in weeks rather than months. You'll also manage the operational side of HR, including employment contracts, payroll processes and forecasts, vacation and leave management, offboarding, benefits and employee records, with care and accuracy.

You'll handle terminations professionally and fairly, in line with labour law and company policy. You'll prepare the documentation, guide managers through the process and treat departing employees with respect, so every exit is compliant, clearly communicated and well managed for both the person leaving and the team.

You'll be the go-to HR partner in the studio: approachable, trusted and hands-on with day-to-day topics, with the backing of the wider HR team. You'll give people a neutral, professional place to bring conflicts, frustrations or personal difficulties, so small issues are solved early instead of growing quietly until they affect the whole team.

You'll recognise unhealthy dynamics, help people move toward ownership, direct conversation and problem-solving, and introduce simple tools that help everyone understand these patterns.

You'll watch for early signals of attrition.

Alongside the HR team, you'll lead initiatives on engagement, well-being, inclusion and psychological safety, and shape studio life through events and rituals that make a remote studio a place people want to be.

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About you

• 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, and you enjoy that side as much as hiring.
• Confidence handling conflict and difficult conversations neutrally, with a working understanding of team dynamics..
• Have experience working with dynamic candidate pipelines 
• Work closely with the CEO to build company culture and values. Be a Key contributor on people and work climate improvements
• 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.
• Fluent English, great communication skills.
• You use AI tools daily and are curious about improving workflows and processes with them.
• Have experience with Atlassian suite, Jira, Confluence, and needs to be comfortable reading Jira reports and Projects. Have worked with Slack in Communication culture and protocol
• You care about games and players, and want the people you hire to feel the same.

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.