Operations Associate
Epoch AI
📍Remote (Global) 🕔 Full Time
💰$65-80,000 p.a. 🔄 Rolling Applications
TL;DR - We're looking for:
A practical and efficient problem solver who focuses on the outcome and owns it.
Example: Spotting potential bottlenecks for a grant application early and proactively (while having other balls in the air) and developing and communicating solutions efficiently.
Someone excited to support mission-driven AI research from behind the scenes.
Example: Handling the operational backbone of research projects - e.g. staff support, hiring, payments, contracts and organization.
A versatile generalist who is also ready to specialize as we grow.
Example: Being comfortable switching hats throughout the day in the short term, but interested in focusing on a specific function in the future.
We review applications for these roles on a rolling basis and will contact you to learn more if we think you might be a good fit. By default, we won’t reach out unless we’re advancing your application, and we might not advance applications right away, depending on our current needs.
About the Position
We're seeking an Operations Associate to help scale Epoch's operational team and infrastructure. As part of our small but growing operations team, you'll take ownership of critical processes across people operations, recruitment, finance, communications, and others. This is an opportunity to shape how a mission-driven AI research organization operates and grows.
The role offers significant autonomy and impact potential: you'll design systems that enable our researchers to focus on their core work, while maintaining our organization healthy and efficient. Your portfolio will be tailored to your strengths across support areas like hiring, staff support, finance, communications and process improvement.
This is a full-time, fully remote position, and we can hire in many countries. We're especially interested in candidates based in the US, to enhance our operations team's coverage. The successful candidates will report to Maria de la Lama, Head of Operations.
We value capabilities over credentials and evaluate candidates primarily through our structured assessment process rather than CVs. If you're excited about building efficient systems and supporting impactful research, we encourage you to apply.
Key Responsibilities
The below are the core functional areas of our operations team, but the role will focus on a subset of these responsibilities based on organizational needs and candidate strengths. Specific responsibilities would be tailored over time as the team and organization evolve.
1. Recruitment & Talent Acquisition
Broadly, own end-to-end hiring processes and candidate experience.
Project-manage hiring rounds and coordinate with hiring managers.
Conduct personalized headhunting for key roles.
Build talent pipelines.
Manage recruiting contractors when applicable.
Handle most communications with candidates.
2. HR
Serve as point of contact for staff support for benefits, payroll, and policies.
Manage employee/contractor onboarding, offboarding, and visa processes.
Help shape organizational culture as we scale.
Conduct employment verifications.
Manage the relationship with HR contractors, PEOs and EOR.
Design and maintain internal HR policies and processes.
3. Project Management & Process Improvement
Support research teams with tracking deadlines and budgets for projects.
Maintain project documentation and communication systems.
Identify and implement operational efficiency improvements.
Create/maintain operational documentation and knowledge management.
Design scalable solutions for organizational growth.
4. Communications
Arrange media coverage for publications and manage our relationship with journalists.
Manage our social media.
Conduct SEO reviews for our publications.
Manage advertising campaigns.
Support the team as required for public appearances and contact with media.
Provide copyediting support for our publications.
5. Finance
Managing payables and receivables
Maintaining financial records and compliance
Owning and managing accounting procedures
Assist during audits
Manage and design financial policies
6. Events and office management
Plan team retreats.
Handle relationships with vendors.
Organize ad-hoc events for our team.
Manage a potential physical office in the future.
About You
The ideal candidate would have some subset of the following characteristics. For each, we've included an example of how these traits might manifest in a professional context–but these are purely illustrative. We're interested in how you demonstrate these qualities, whether through traditional work experience or other activities.
You’ll likely have
An operations mindset: being good at identifying issues, keeping track of many fast-moving tasks, prioritizing among them, and implementing solutions efficiently. This might look like: thinking about potential bottlenecks to visa applications before they happen, suggesting and trying out potential solutions to the bottlenecks, all while keeping deadlines in mind and managing other concurring projects.
An ownership mindset: You keep your eyes on the ultimate goal of a task or responsibility, figure out the steps to get us there at a high standard of quality, voice concerns unaddressed by the team, and own the result. This might look like: checking for and flagging any potential logistical issues with a grant application, and pushing for submitting it long before the deadline if this will prevent issues. If the grant application isn't successful because of a logistical reason, you own the results and develop a plan to prevent this in the future.
Experience working in operations or managing projects, particularly in a startup-like fast-moving environment. Many roles and activities qualify as "operations experience" under our definition. We are most interested in entrepreneurship experience (e.g. starting and running your own business) or experience working in tech startups, particularly in roles involving behind-the-scenes support.
Great communication skills, and comfort with open and direct communication. It's very important for us that our team members are comfortable giving and receiving feedback, and more generally sharing their thoughts and disagreements clearly and openly. This might look like: speaking up when you have a concern about a process or risk –even if the person responsible for the issue is a supervisor– or leading regular team meetings to ensure clear information flow.
Project management skills: Autonomously planning and executing tasks, managing resources and timelines, maintaining both a “big picture” understanding of a project and addressing details. This might look like: managing a product launch across multiple departments, noticing and flagging detailed issues with the product, but also prioritising aggressively among tasks when on a deadline.
Strong organization and attention to detail. This might look like: maintaining error-free databases in a previous role.
An autonomous and proactive mindset: able to manage projects independently and take initiative. This might look like: founding a business, organization or major project.
Interest and ability to specialize: We value generalist capabilities, but we're looking for someone who can grow into a focused role as our organization expands and needs specialists. This might look like: developing from generalist admin role into specialized people operations coordinator or event coordinator.
A low-ego, supportive mindset and being comfortable working behind the scenes. This might look like: working behind-the-scenes with organizing events.
It’s nice if you have
Interest in developing (further) operations skills. This might look like: being curious about taking courses on operations.
Comfort with remote work. This might look like: coordinating a distributed team across time zones.
Systems-oriented mindset: passionate about optimizing processes and eliminating inefficiencies, with the ability to step back and view the bigger picture. This might look like: redesigning company processes to improve efficiency
Flexibility with your working schedule: Our team works across several time zones, which requires flexibility for meetings and key responsibilities when collaborating with team members in other time zones. This might look like: taking a meeting in the evening to allow somebody in another timezone to attend, or replying to an important message after work hours to ensure it's not a blocker for somebody in another timezone.
Experience in a specialized operations area: This might look like: background or demonstrated interest (e.g. courses) in specific operational domains such as HR, communications, recruitment, or similar.
What We Offer
Compensation
Annual salary between $65,000 and $80,000 USD pre-tax. The exact salary will be based on prior relevant experience.
Salaries are not restricted to USD, and contracts and payments are usually in local currencies. Conversions from USD are based on a 1-year-average exchange rate that is updated in contracts annually.
Other Benefits
Comprehensive global benefits package
While they vary by country, we make every effort to ensure that our benefits package is equitable and high-quality for all staff. For most countries, the package includes medical insurance, life insurance and pension plan.
Generous paid time off leave, including:
We don't set limits for vacation and encourage a minimum of 30 days off per year.
Unlimited (within reason) personal and sick leave.
Parental leave - up to 6 months of parental leave during the first 2 years after a child’s birth or adoption for parents of all genders.
Technology stipend of the equivalent of $2000 USD every 3 years to cover costs of purchasing work and office equipment.
Paid work trips, including three staff retreats per year and relevant conferences.
Additional in-person co-working stipend of the equivalent of $2000 USD annually to work in the same location as other staff.
Professional Development stipend equivalent to $2000 USD annually to spend on learning or development opportunities.
A supportive team who is excited about the work we are doing and is aligned with our mission.
Other benefits as allowed at the discretion of Epoch’s leadership and local availability.
Additional Information
Please email careers@epochai.org if you have any questions about this role, accessibility requests, or if want to request an extension to the deadline.
While we welcome applicants from all time zones, we prefer candidates between UTC-8 and UTC+3 time zones, where most of our staff are based.
Please submit all of your application materials in English and note that we require professional level English proficiency.
Travel is an essential requirement for this position: we hold three retreats per year, and the operations associate support will be required for these events.
Epoch is committed to building an inclusive, equitable, and supportive community for you to thrive and do your best work. We’re committed to finding the best people for our team, so please don’t hesitate to apply for a role regardless of your age, gender identity/expression, political identity, personal preferences, physical abilities, veteran status, neurodiversity or any other background.
Epoch is fiscally sponsored by Rethink Priorities.
