Operations Assistant

Open Philanthropy is aiming to hire one or more Operations Assistants to support our growing organization. Open Philanthropy currently gives away over $200 million per year with the aim of doing as much good as we can per dollar in causes like criminal justice reform, farm animal welfare, biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, and potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence. As an Operations Assistant, you will facilitate Open Philanthropy’s mission of doing as much good as possible for people and animals by supporting a wide range of day-to-day operations.

We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. If you have any questions about applying, please contact jobs@openphilanthropy.org.

About the role

We’ve described some categories your work will fall into below:

• Office management. This will include both specific tasks related to reopening our office post-pandemic, and ongoing duties such as managing reception, handling mail, managing and improving our office food program, and other upkeep and troubleshooting.
• Event planning and staff engagement. You will assist with (and later lead) virtual and in-person events, e.g. roundtables where staff share updates on their work, team lunches and happy hours, team-wide retreats, and events for individual program teams, such as grantee convenings or retreats.
• Recurring processes. This will involve helping with processes such as publishing grant pages on our website, processing invoices, onboarding new hires, sending communications to staff, and keeping various repositories of internal information organized and up-to-date.
• Support for individual staff members. You will triage and take on tasks from our queue of inbound support requests (e.g. scheduling/calendar management for a senior staff person, data cleaning, taking notes on calls with grantees, assisting the recruiting team with tasks such as emailing candidates and tracking work tests).
• Longer-term operations projects aimed at improving our processes and policies, depending on capacity/interest.

The proportion of time spent on each of these buckets will fluctuate considerably depending on the time of year and the team’s immediate needs. In the event that we make multiple hires there may be some room to customize individual portfolios based on hires’ skills and preferences (but we can’t guarantee this). Over time, we hope Assistants will take on more responsibility, and have the opportunity to grow into a variety of more specialized roles on the operations team (e.g. a role focused on HR, recruiting, staff engagement/retention, working as a personal assistant for a more senior staff member, managing other operations team members or functions, etc).

About you

There are no degree or work experience requirements for this position, and we are open to candidates with varying levels of experience. We think this role could be a particularly good fit if you:

• Are able to communicate effectively by phone and email. You will be the face of the operations team and Open Philanthropy to a variety of internal and external stakeholders; e.g. you will need to coordinate with external vendors, respond to inbound email inquiries and greet guests as they enter the office.
• Constantly seek out improvements and question the status quo in pursuit of a better solution or system.
• Feel confident in your ability to keep on top of a large number of open items and next steps while making sure things don’t get dropped, and while paying close attention to the details.
• Are service-minded, and comfortable with some amount of repetition in your work; you are motivated by the idea of contributing to what Open Phil needs most, even if it’s not glamorous.
• Have some experience with, and are enthusiastic about, operations work (it’s okay if this experience was in the context of e.g. an internship or student position). We will try to give priority to candidates who are potentially interested in a career in operations and/or project management. Experience with operations work in the context of an organization aligned with the principles of effective altruism is a bonus.

Across roles, we value staff who are able to communicate clearly and honestly about what they think, are comfortable giving and receiving feedback (including upward feedback for their manager or the organization), and interested in taking ownership of their work and proactively seeking ways to help Open Philanthropy meet its goals.

Additional information

• This is a full-time position, and the compensation for this role is $77,904.02 which includes a base salary of $67,742.63 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $10,161.39.
• The start date for this position is somewhat flexible, with an ideal start date sometime in June.
• This is a San Francisco-based position (in practice, we expect the final hire will start work remotely, and relocate once we are firmly moving towards office reopening; we anticipate that this will happen sometime this summer).
• We offer a comprehensive benefits package including full health, dental, vision and life insurance, and a stipend for ergonomic equipment.
• Unfortunately, we are unable to sponsor visas for this role.

We are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from self-identified women and people of color who are excited about contributing to our mission. Open Philanthropy is an equal opportunity employer. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact jobs@openphilanthropy.org.