Principal HR Business Partner

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation.

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

The Principal Human Resources Business Partner (Principal HRBP) is a senior, individual-contributor role within People & Culture that serves as a strategic thought partner to executive leadership, typically at the EVP level. This role is designed to support enterprise-level transformation, providing deep expertise in organizational design, talent strategy, leadership effectiveness, and culture.

The Principal HRBP operates with broad scope and influence, partnering with senior leaders to translate business strategy into people strategies that drive measurable outcomes. This role is intentionally non-managerial, enabling full focus on complex, high-impact work without dilution from people-management responsibilities.

• Serve as a trusted advisor to EVP-level leaders, providing counsel on organizational effectiveness, leadership dynamics, and workforce strategy.
• Translate business priorities into long-term people and talent strategies aligned to F5’s transformation agenda.
• Anticipate risks and opportunities by looking around corners, offering clear, data-informed recommendations to senior leaders.

• Lead enterprise-level organizational design efforts, including operating model changes, restructures, role clarity, and decision-rights.
• Partner with leaders through periods of significant change, ensuring clarity, alignment, and sustainable adoption.
• Diagnose systemic organizational issues and design solutions that improve speed, effectiveness, and talent outcomes.

• Shape talent strategy for critical roles and leadership populations, including talent density, succession, and pipeline health.
• Coach senior leaders on leadership effectiveness, performance, and navigating complexity.
• Partner with HR Centers of Excellence to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions.

• Use workforce data, business metrics, and external perspective to inform executive decision-making.
• Present insights and recommendations with executive-level clarity, including tradeoffs, risks, and expected outcomes.

• Champion F5 culture and leadership behaviors that support business strategy and values.
• Influence and mentor other HRBPs through thought leadership and modeling strong strategic partnership.
• Contribute to the evolution of People & Culture practices, frameworks, and ways of working.

• Operates with enterprise-level scope, addressing the most complex, ambiguous, and high-risk people challenges.
• Influences outcomes across multiple functions or business units.
• Focuses on durable, transformational impact rather than transactional HR delivery.

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• Typically 8+ years of progressive HR experience in complex, fast-changing environments.
• Demonstrated expertise in organizational design, talent strategy, and executive consulting.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect people strategy to business outcomes.
• Proven ability to influence senior leaders without formal authority.

• Individual Contributor role with no direct people-management responsibilities.
• Designed to provide deep, embedded EVP-level partnership during periods of transformation.
• Success is measured by business outcomes, organizational health, and leadership effectiveness.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities…