Open roles: Operations team

About 80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours’ goal is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems — we aim to be the world’s best source of support and advice for them on how to do so. That means helping people shift their careers to work on solving problems that are more important, neglected, and solvable — and to pick more promising methods for solving those problems.

We’ve had over 10 million readers on our website, have ~450,000 subscribers to our newsletter and have given 1on1 advice to over 4,000 people. We’re also one of the top ways people who get involved in EA first hear about it, and we’re the most commonly cited factor for ‘getting involved’ in the EA community.

The operations team oversees 80,000 Hours’ HR, recruiting, finances, org-wide metrics, and office management, as well as much of our fundraising, tech systems, and team coordination. We’re also currently overseeing our spinout from Effective Ventures and setup as an independent organisation.

Currently, the operations team has four full-time staff, some part-time staff, and we receive operations support from Effective Ventures. We’re planning to (at least!) double the size of our operations team over the next year.

The roles

These roles would be great for building career capital in operations, especially if you could one day see yourself in a more senior operations role (e.g. specialising in a particular area, taking on management, or eventually being a Head of Operations or COO).

We plan to hire people at both the specialist and associate level during this round. To give an idea of how the roles might differ:

• Specialists are more likely to manage larger areas of responsibility, oversee complex projects, and design new policies and systems.
• Associates are more likely to focus on owning and implementing our processes, identifying improvements and optimisations, and will take on more complex projects over time.

People operations specialists and associates

We’d like to hire 2–3 people to work in the following areas. As we’re planning to make several hires, we’ll work with the chosen candidates to create a responsibility set which works well for each of them — so please still apply if you think only one or two things from the list sound like a good fit.

• Designing and running the systems needed for us to manage HR for 35+ staff and deliver an excellent employee experience. Examples include onboarding and offboarding, visa sponsorship, payroll, and staff benefits.
• Project managing and / or providing operational support for hiring rounds, ensuring a smooth and efficient recruitment process.
• Helping us design and build org-wide recruiting infrastructure to improve how our recruitment processes run.
• Planning and hosting team events — for example, our weekly “lunch and learn” sessions, regular team socials, end-of-quarter dinners, and an annual team retreat.
• Leading our annual organisation-wide feedback round and analysing the results to help us continually improve.
• Developing and implementing our internal policies — such as our salary policy, staff categories policy, and approach to expenses and benefits.

Business operations specialists and associates

We’d like to hire 1–3 people to work in the following areas. As we’re planning to make several hires, we’ll work with the chosen candidates to create a responsibility set which works well for each of them — so please still apply if you think only one or two things from the list sound like a good fit for you. We’re also excited to support our staff to skill up in areas they don’t have experience in.

• Managing and improving our data sources so our team can easily interact with the information they need to work effectively.
• Tracking and communicating our org-wide and programme-specific metrics to internal and external stakeholders.
• Financial management, including budgeting, monitoring and coordination of our spending.
• Coordinating and writing external communications, like our supporter updates and fundraising documents.
• Developing our information security and compliance practices to keep our data and systems safe.
• Being the go-to person for IT-related challenges our team might face.
• Taking on special projects, such as managing our book giveaway programme or figuring out the most effective way for the team to work with executive assistants.

Who we’re looking for

For both the people and business operations roles, we’re looking for people who are:

• Organised: you’re able to keep track of a large number of tasks at once, rarely drop balls, and follow through on your commitments. Experience managing projects is a bonus, but not essential.
• Detail-oriented: you’re excited about getting into the weeds on our policies and processes, identifying discrepancies, and making sure we don’t miss important details.
• Clear communicators: your communication is straightforward and you demonstrate a high level of reasoning transparency. For the people operations roles, it’s particularly important to be able to communicate professionally and tactfully about sensitive topics.
• Flexible: you’re excited about working on a variety of projects and are motivated to do what’s most valuable to push 80,000 Hours’ mission forward.
• Excited about supporting our mission of getting talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems.

Previous experience

For the specialist-level roles, candidates would ideally have at least two years of previous experience. This doesn’t have to be directly relevant to operations — it might be in another generalist role such as consulting, communications, project management, or community building.

For the associate-level roles, previous experience is not required. If you’re hired for this role and are performing particularly well, we’re likely to promote you to the specialist level quickly.

We’re excited to hear from both generalists and people who are interested in one particular element of operations (e.g. HR or finance).

Logistics

These are full-time roles, ideally based in London, UK, and we can sponsor visas for these positions. We’d also consider remote candidates who can work at least four hours per day between 9AM–6PM UK time.

The start date for these roles is flexible. Ideally, our chosen candidates would start as soon as possible.

The people operations roles will be managed by Sashika Coxhead (Head of HR and Recruiting), and the business operations roles will be managed by Jørgen Ljønes (Head of Operations).

Salary and benefits

The salary will vary based on skills and experience, but to give a rough sense, we expect starting salaries to be between £50,000–75,000.

Our benefits include:

• 25 days of paid holiday, plus public holidays
• Private medical insurance
• Long-term disability insurance
• Pension scheme / retirement plan with employer contributions
• Up to 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave and childcare allowance for children under five
• £5,000 annual mental health support allowance
• £5,000 annual self-development budget
• The option to use 10% of your time for self-development
• Gym, shower facilities, and unlimited free food provided at our London office

How to apply

To apply, please complete this application form by 11PM GMT on Sunday, March 24, 2024. We expect the application to take approximately 60 minutes to complete. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].

We welcome you to apply for more than one role if interested — please just indicate this on the form when asked!

We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to apply for roles for which they meet many but not all the suggested attributes, and would especially like to encourage people from under-represented backgrounds to apply, even if you don’t meet all the suggested criteria.

The application process will vary depending on the candidate and role, but is likely to include 1–3 written work samples, an interview, and a multi-day in-person trial. We offer payment for work samples and trials, conditional on your location and right to work in the UK.