About Open Philanthropy
Open Philanthropy is a grantmaker; our mission is to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us. We stress openness to many possibilities and have chosen our focus areas based on importance, neglectedness and tractability. We’re particularly interested in high-risk, high-reward giving that may be too unconventional for other funders. Our current giving areas include potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, global health and development, scientific research, global public health policy, farm animal welfare, and biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. In 2023, we recommended just under $800 million to high-impact causes, and we’ve recommended over $3 billion in grants since our formation.
About the role
You will manage our Business Operations team (BizOps), which is currently made up of six staff and is likely to grow over time. BizOps owns office management and administrative support, 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 tackle new needs as they arise and identify and redesign processes so they match our growth.
You will onboard, train, and manage a team of high-performing generalist operations staff and work with them to:
- Coordinate our office needs — your team will support day-to-day tasks like greeting visitors, ordering supplies, or fixing our workstations. You’ll also take on larger projects like scoping office move requirements in San Francisco or Washington D.C., or investigating new remote office hubs.
- Provide flex capacity — your team will provide one-off and ongoing support to our program teams (e.g. cleaning up notes from grantee calls, light research or data analysis, organizing files, and team scheduling logistics) and key executives (CEO and Managing Director-level admin support).
- Execute org-wide event logistics — your team will collaborate with our People Operations team to organize and support quarterly “Togetherness Week” events and our annual team retreat.
- Handle anything else that needs to be done — it’s impossible to anticipate everything we might need. You will 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).
As team lead, your primary focus will be: being responsive to the organization’s needs, setting team strategy and priorities, mentoring and developing your direct and skip-level reports, and holding the team to high standards for performance and output.
Who might be a good fit
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 team 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.
- Are excited about the work that Open Philanthropy is doing, across a wide range of our cause areas (e.g. global health and development, biosecurity, and risks from advanced AI).
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.
The ideal candidate for this position will possess many of the skills and experiences described above. However, 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: The baseline compensation for this role is $176,371.49, which would be distributed as a base salary of $153,371.49 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $23,000.00 for U.S. hires.
- 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: This role would preferably be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, but we are also open to candidates working remotely from elsewhere in the US, or to candidates working abroad who are willing to consistently work US business hours. Our current team is split between the East and West coasts of the US, and the role will require some ad hoc travel to both locations.
- We are not able to sponsor visas for this role.
- Benefits: Our benefits package includes:
- Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the US for you and any eligible dependents) and an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement for certain other personal health expenses.
- 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
- A continual learning policy that encourages staff to spend time on professional development with related expenses covered.
- 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 September, though ideally much 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.
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and we recommend applying early.
Please apply (latest) by 11.59 p.m. Pacific Time on July 1, 2024 to be considered.