People Operations Associate

About the Team

GovAI was founded to help humanity navigate the transition to a world with advanced AI. One crucial input to achieving this mission is ensuring that our staff and visiting researchers have an excellent experience and can focus on their most important work.

Since publishing our first research agenda in 2018, we have helped define and shape the field of AI governance. Our researchers have published in top venues, including Science and Nature, and work closely with decision-makers across government, industry, and civil society. Our alumni have gone on to influential roles in government (US, UK, EU), leading AI companies (e.g. DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic‍), top think tanks (e.g CSET, RAND), and leading universities (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge).

Our team and affiliate community possess expertise across risk management, threat modeling, frontier AI regulation, technical governance, agent governance, AI economics, international cooperation, US-China relations, and AI forecasting.

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Why You Might Be Interested In This Role

• You'll be key to ensuring GovAI staff can focus on high-impact work.
  
  • Every outstanding researcher or staff member who joins GovAI will experience onboarding processes you help run. Every person who navigates a smooth benefits enrollment or performance review will have been supported by systems you maintain. Your operational excellence and attention to detail directly translates to better outcomes for humanity's AI future.‍
• You'll solve difficult puzzles and work to navigate challenging tradeoffs.
  
  • How do we make sure researchers get the help they need quickly without being slowed down by logistical hurdles? How do we maintain compliance across US and UK employment law while keeping processes simple? These aren't just logistics problems—they're strategic challenges that require creativity and attention to detail. You'll directly work to help us solve them.‍
• ‍You'll  see your systems work in real-time.‍
  
  • In this role you'll get to directly watch new staff move through People Operations processes you've improved, see your work reduce bureaucratic friction for researchers, and get direct feedback from staff on what's working or needing improvement.‍
• ‍You'll build the foundation for GovAI's most important work.‍
  
  • Our researchers and fellows have gone on to careers at OpenAI, DeepMind, the White House, and top universities. The systems you build will support the next generation of AI governance leaders, ensuring they can focus on their research and impact.

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Role Description

This position plays a pivotal part in GovAI's future success — if staff are distracted by bureaucracy or have a poor experience with our internal processes, our impact as an organization suffers. Your role is to help ensure that people operations runs smoothly and efficiently.

You'll execute people operations processes from onboarding through ongoing employee support, making sure that staff have an excellent experience and that all compliance requirements are met. You'll report to the People Ops Manager, and work closely with other members on the team.

Responsibilities will include:

• Executing onboarding and offboarding processes:
  
  • You'll directly manage onboarding for new staff, visiting researchers, and contractors, ensuring they have everything they need and know how to navigate GovAI effectively.
  • You'll handle offboarding processes, ensuring smooth transitions when staff depart.
• Managing ongoing people operations workflows:
  
  • You'll handle benefits administration, reimbursements, and other routine people ops tasks efficiently.
  • You'll track and ensure compliance with US and UK employment law requirements, including training requirements, policy updates, and statutory obligations.
  • You'll maintain employee records and ensure data accuracy in our systems.
• Supporting staff and communicating with employees:
  
  • You'll be a primary point of contact for staff questions about benefits, policies, and HR processes.
  • You'll communicate clearly and promptly with staff throughout various processes.
• Improving our people operations systems:
  
  • You'll work with the People Ops Manager on improving processes at GovAI, including by creating and improving templates, documentation, and resources for staff.
  • You'll identify pain points in current processes and propose solutions.

In your first six months, we expect that you might:

• Directly manage the onboarding process for as many as 10 new staff members and 40 seasonal fellows.
• Take ownership of key ongoing workflows like benefits administration and compliance tracking.
• Create or improve documentation and resources that make staff experience better, such as contributing to an employee handbook or onboarding guides.
• Identify and implement process improvements in your areas of responsibility.

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Selection Criteria

We're selecting candidates who are:

• Driven by a desire to produce consistently excellent work and an obsession with process improvement.
• Highly organized — our people operations function has many moving pieces, and you'll need to manage these different workflows efficiently.
• Strong at attention to detail and project management.
• Strong at interpersonal communication and providing excellent service to staff.
• Detail-oriented and able to handle compliance requirements carefully.
• Excited by the opportunity to use their careers to positively influence the lasting impact of artificial intelligence, in line with our organization's mission.

Some profiles that might be an especially good fit for this role include:

• Experience in an ops or HR role at an AI governance organization, research organization, or tech company.
• Experience in a process-intensive role with strong attention to detail, such as operations coordination or HR administration.
• Someone early in their career looking to build expertise in people operations at a high-impact organization.

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Salary and Location

This position is full-time. Our offices are located in London, UK, and we strongly prefer team members to be based here, but are open to individuals who would need to work remotely. We are able to sponsor visas.

The People Ops Associate will be compensated in line with our salary principles. As such, the salary for this role will depend on the successful applicant's experience, but we expect the range to be between £66,000 (~$88,000) and £80,000 (~$108,000) if based in London. In rare cases where salary considerations would prevent a candidate from accepting an offer, there may also be some flexibility in compensation.

We also offer competitive benefits, including a 10% pension/401k contribution and private medical cover.

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How to Apply and What to Expect

Application Process

The selection process has three stages:

• Written application
• Paid work test
• An interview and reference checks

Special Circumstances

Please contact recruitment@governance.ai if you:

• Need a decision communicated by a particular date
• Require assistance with the application due to a disability
• Have questions about the application process

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Addressing complex AI governance challenges requires many different skillsets and perspectives. We welcome applicants from a wide range of backgrounds. If our mission excites you, we encourage you to apply, even if your experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification listed. Your unique combination of experience and motivation might be exactly what we're looking for.

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