Expression of Interest: Director of Operations

The Center on Long-Term Risk will soon be recruiting for a Director of Operations. The role is to lead our 2-person operations team, handling challenges across areas such as HR, finance, compliance and recruitment. Due to uncertainty over whether the role will be located in London (UK) or Berkeley (California), we are running a low-volume invite-only round now; to be followed by an open round in ~April after we gain certainty on the location, if we don’t hire now. We’d also be open to mainly-remote candidates in some circumstances (see below). We’re excited for expressions of interest from anyone with experience of challenging operations work, and at least a little experience of people management. If you’re interested in the role, we’d be excited for you to submit our short expression of interest form by the end of Sunday 11th February.

The Director of Operations role is to lead our 2-person operations team, with responsibility across areas such as HR, finance, compliance, office management, grantmaking ops, and recruitment. You’d report to our Executive Director, and would take on the management of our existing Operations Associate.

Specific responsibilities include: - Working with our Executive Director and board of trustees to facilitate major organisational decisions, providing an operations perspective. - Managing and mentoring our Operations Associate, as well as a number of support staff and contractors. - Managing compliance and finances for our ecosystem of charitable entities (in collaboration with the Operations Associate, legal advisors and accountants). - Overseeing and refining CLR’s internal systems in areas such as HR, grantmaking ops, IT, recruitment and immigration. - Leading on major operations projects as they arise, such as running events or hiring staff in new countries.

CLR overall is currently a team of 13, and we plan to recruit 3-4 new staff in 2024. As well as supporting our research teams, the operations team facilitates CLR’s grantmaking, annual summer research fellowship, and runs regular events, such as external research retreats. If we go ahead with moving to Berkeley, setting up infrastructure in the US will be a major priority for 2024.

We estimate that around 70% of your time in the role would be spent directly working on operations projects, and 30% on people management, co-ordination, and strategy.

We’re interested in candidates who bring most of the following skills and experience to the role: - Experience of operations work in a challenging, varied and/or high-growth context. - You’ve worked across more than one operations area (e.g. HR, accounting, compliance, events, …), in a small or quickly-growing organisation, and regularly faced new situations and had to independently work out solutions. - You likely have at least 2 years’ experience of this kind of work, perhaps substantially more. - We expect the successful candidate will likely be substantially further into their career than this, however we are open to candidates whose experience is mostly in other domains, or to exceptional early-career candidates. - If you have a track record of successfully dealing with challenges and managing projects in a few different domains, and at least some operations experience, we’re excited to hear from you! - You have the skills that make people excellent at work of this kind, such as strong attention to detail, problem-solving, and being organised and reliable. - At least some experience of people management. - Good judgement: You can make sensible decisions about complex issues across a wide variety of domains, including areas in which you don’t have much expertise. You can anticipate problems, manage risks, and prioritise well. - Great communication and people skills. You can collaborate with people in a wide variety of contexts, transparently explain the reasoning for your decisions, get to the bottom of disagreements, and act compassionately in difficult situations. - Drive to further CLR’s mission of reducing worst-case risks from advanced AI systems; and either familiarity with the effective altruism community and its priorities and culture, or drive to learn more about this area.

The Director of Operations is central to CLR’s activities and impact. As well as continuing the existing high level of support provided to our team and projects, we’re excited for a candidate with great judgement to bring new ideas and drive organisational change, and so multiply our impact further.

CLR’s mission is to reduce worst-case risks from the development of advanced AI systems. We are the largest organisation focussed on s-risk reduction, with our researchers being among only a few working on s-risk reduction and cooperative AI.

Compensation & benefits: For full-time work in this role, we offer a salary of 110-150,000 USD if the role is based in the Bay Area, or 60-90,000 GBP for London. For applicants based outside London or the Bay Area, the salary will be adjusted based on local living costs, in accordance with our compensation policy. If you’re interested in this role but would require a higher salary, we encourage you to go ahead and apply. We’re open to discussing higher compensation for exceptional candidates. Benefits for this role will include: - 25 days’ paid vacation per year, plus public holidays. - If you’re based in the US, 100% coverage of our platinum health insurance plan. For UK staff, private health insurance. - Pension scheme with default employer contribution of 10% of your qualifying earnings, increasing to 15% to match additional contributions made by you. - Catered plant-based lunch available at the office every day. - A budget of £3000 per year to spend on your professional development and productivity. - Flexible working hours. - 20 weeks’ paid leave for new parents. - We will pay reasonable relocation costs for candidates who move to London or the Bay Area to take up the role.

How to apply: If you’re interested in the role, please submit this short expression of interest form by the end of Sunday 11th February. The form will still be monitored after this, but we’ll only invite late applicants to join the invite-only round in exceptional cases.