Job Description

We are looking for an experienced HR professional for maternity coverage to support the full range of HR activities and work in close alignment with the business towards executing the HR and business strategies. This is an experienced individual contributor role reporting into the Regional HR Director, Europe. This position is responsible for HR generalist activities for the Cognex Engineering organizations in Europe. The person will be responsible for HR (Employee Services) for our Customer Success and Engineering business in Europe. In addition, this position will utilize Hungarian labor law knowledge to support other functions.

Key Responsibilities

HR Partnership:

• Partner with business leaders and managers to align HR strategies with business goals, ensuring effective workforce planning and performance management.
• Support organizational design and structure to enable talent optimization and drive business success.

Employee Relations:

• Promote a positive employee relations environment by addressing concerns proactively and maintaining open communication.
• Enhance retention strategies by cultivating an engaging workplace culture.

Talent Acquisition:

• Collaborate with the recruitment team to attract and hire top talent that aligns with Cognex’s values and objectives and the mission of the business.

Performance Management:

• Enhance productivity by driving ongoing performance discussions, coaching, and, when necessary, implementing disciplinary actions or terminations.
• Facilitate the establishment of clear performance objectives and oversee their timely evaluation.

Organizational Development & Change Management:

• Identify and address structural barriers to achieving strategic initiatives.
• Partner with business to optimize resource allocation to support business goals effectively.
• Help create a change ready culture and use data to predict and plan.

Talent Development:

• Identify high-potential employees and create tailored development plans to ensure succession planning and readiness for critical roles.
• Drive employee engagement by fostering a culture of feedback, recognition, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications and Competencies

• 7+ years relevant working experience and proven success in a similar role, ideally supporting engineering organizations (Software and Hardware) at European level with focus on Hungary.
• Bachelor’s Degree in a HR-related field required, Master’s Degree is a strong advantage.
• Expert knowledge and experience in general employment law, overall company HR policies and processes.
• Experience in managing complex employee relations cases.
• Ability to build a strong reputation by developing relationships with internal and external customers.
• Excellent communication, coaching and influencing skills, especially in sensitive and conflict situations.
• Ability to navigate “gray area” and make effective decisions.
• A self-starter with a creative and flexible approach to work, with proven ability for adapting to fast-paced and dynamic work environment.
• Ability and willingness to work both strategically and operationally.
• Knowledge and experience with Hungarian and other European employment law, administration and market practices.
• Fluency in English and Hungarian, other European languages a plus.
• Excellent knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook), adept at data analytics.
• Experience with Workday is a strong advantage.

Cognex offers

• Being part of an international HR team with a holistic approach.
• Challenging and diverse area of responsibility in a fast-growing international company.
• Great personal and professional development opportunities.
• Unique people-centric company culture of “Work Hard, Play Hard, Move Fast”.
• Multicultural environment in a pleasant office and many team activities.
• Europe wide and Hungary specific benefits are available at your fingertips.

This role is to cover a maternity leave for ~ 2 years, starting with a one-year contract.