CLOSED: Business Operations Lead

Table of Contents

    You will manage our Business Operations team (BizOps), which is currently made up of 4 staff and likely to grow over time. BizOps responds flexibly to program and research staff needs, and does everything else necessary to ensure that Open Philanthropy runs smoothly. As we scale our staff and our giving —  and grow more remote and international over time —  you will lead the redesign of processes that don’t make sense anymore and tackle new needs as they arise.

    You will onboard, train and manage a team of high performing generalist operations staff, and work with them to:

    • Make Open Philanthropy more efficient and productive — your team will both directly support staff with time-consuming tasks (like cleaning up data or notes from grantee calls) and investigate scalable solutions to commonly-faced problems (e.g. identifying a software to automate booking travel, or getting research staff access to paywalled articles faster).
    • Navigate our office needs, in San Francisco and beyond — we’re planning to downsize our San Francisco office space to reflect our newly distributed workforce. Your team will spearhead our relocation within the Bay and support all aspects of maintaining both that office and new remote office hubs in other cities.
    • Manage our cybersecurity and IT operations — your team will make sure our information security and information-management protocols meet our needs.
    • Run gatherings and events — your team will help put on quarterly “togetherness weeks” and an annual retreat to bring our staff together, as well as taking on team-specific event planning needs (e.g. bringing grantees together for a summit).
    • Handle anything else that needs to get done — it’s impossible to anticipate everything we might need. We want you to help us build an agile, flexible, creative operations team that’s ready for anything (e.g. you might loan capacity to support a program team with a major project for several months).

    This role will report to Director of Operations, Paige Henchen. As team lead, your primary focus will be: being responsive to the organization’s needs, setting team strategy and priorities, mentoring and developing your reports, and holding the team to high standards for performance and output.

     

    Who we’re looking for

    You might be a great fit for this work if you:

    • Work in a responsive, agile way; you stay calm when conditions change and are able to improvise and pivot quickly.
    • Are excited to develop and mentor talented operations staff. Some of your reports may be in their first jobs (or first jobs working in operations) and we want you to help them grow into confident, stellar contributors over time.
    • Have a “getting to yes,” solutions-oriented mindset. When someone comes to you with a problem, you want them to come away with a solution, even if that solution looks different from their original request.
    • Have a track record of increasing organizational efficiency in past roles. You’re always looking for ways we can do more with the same number of people and hours.
    • Can integrate the needs of many diverse stakeholders. Your team’s “client base” includes everyone working at Open Philanthropy — across many locations, cultures and cause areas —  and you’ll be looking to design solutions that work well for as many people as possible.

    Note that while there are no formal degree or experience level requirements for this role, we are only considering candidates with at least some previous management experience. 

    We expect all our staff to:

    • Put our mission first, and act with urgency to help us realize our ambitious goals for impact.
    • Work to model our operating values of ownership, openness, calibration and inclusiveness.

    There is no such thing as a “perfect” candidate. If you are on the fence about applying because you are unsure whether you are qualified, we would strongly encourage you to apply.

     

    Role details & benefits

    • Compensation: Compensation for this role will be based on a range of $135,947 to ​​$159,399, which (for US hires) would be distributed as a base salary of $118,215 to $139,399 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $17,732 to 20,000.
      • These compensation figures assume a remote location; there would be geographic adjustments upwards for candidates based in the San Francisco Bay Area or Washington, D.C.
      • All compensation will be distributed in the form of take-home salary for internationally based hires.
    • Time zones and location: You can work from anywhere. While we are not able to sponsor visas for this role, we are open to hires outside the US willing to consistently work US business hours.
    • Benefits: Our benefits package includes:
      • Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the US for you and any dependents)
      • Dental, vision and life insurance for you and your family
      • Four weeks of PTO recommended per year
      • Four months of fully paid family leave
      • A generous and flexible expense policy — we encourage staff to expense the ergonomic equipment, software and other services that they need to stay healthy and productive
      • Support for remote work — we’ll cover a remote workspace outside your home if you need one, or connect you with an Open Phil coworking hub in your city
      • We can’t always provide every benefit we offer US staff to international hires, but we’re working on it (and will usually provide cash equivalents of any benefits we can’t offer in your country)
    • Start date: We’d like a candidate to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer — and definitely no later than April, though ideally much sooner.

    We’re considering applicants on a rolling basis and will keep this role open until it’s filled. Please apply as soon as you are able — we may give priority to candidates who are able to move through the process sooner. 

     

    We aim to employ people with many different experiences, perspectives and backgrounds who share our passion for accomplishing as much good as we can. We are committed to creating an environment where all employees have the opportunity to succeed, and we do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.

    If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact jobs@openphilanthropy.org.