People Operations Manager

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 own one of the highest-leverage problems that GovAI faces.
  
  • Every hour a researcher spends navigating bureaucracy or confusion is an hour not spent on crucial AI governance work. Every staff member who has a poor onboarding experience is less likely to do their best work or stay long-term. You'll be responsible for ensuring our people operations enables rather than hinders our mission.‍
• You'll lead both people and strategy through rapid scaling.
  
  • You'll manage and build a team while simultaneously solving novel challenges. As we grow, you'll be responsible for ensuring that our systems scale gracefully and that staff have the support they need to succeed.‍
• You'll pioneer approaches that help define excellence in AI governance organizations.
  
  • Many organizations in this space are still figuring out how people operations can best support research. The systems and approaches you develop will likely influence how our peer organizations think about supporting research staff.
• You'll have autonomy to experiment and improve.
  • We need creative solutions to reduce bureaucracy and make our staff experience excellent. You'll have the backing to overhaul processes, the data to measure what works, and the freedom to iterate rapidly on high-impact improvements.
• You'll directly enable the next generation of AI governance leaders.
  
  • The people your team supports won't just work at GovAI—they'll go on to influence AI policy at major governments, lead research at top institutions, and build the field's intellectual foundations. Your work ensures they can focus on what matters most.

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Role Description

You'll be the directly responsible individual for ensuring that GovAI's people operations provides an excellent staff experience, operates smoothly and efficiently, and supports our mission. You'll report to Abraham Rowe, our Director of Operations.

Our people operations faces major challenges: we're scaling rapidly, we're introducing middle managers who need support, and we have teams in the US, UK, and other countries. We're looking for a People Ops Manager who is excited to tackle these challenges and significantly improve how we support our staff.

Responsibilities will include:

• Managing the people operations team:
  
  • You'll be responsible for managing the people ops team at GovAI (currently 2 staff members, expected to be 3, including you), not only overseeing their work, but providing feedback and mentorship for staff.
• Overseeing GovAI's people operations function:
  
  • You'll ensure that onboarding runs smoothly and that new staff have a great experience.
  • You'll ensure we efficiently and regularly move forward important people operations programs, like performance evaluations and other key initiatives.
  • You'll help manage performance issues, employee conflict, and other complex people operations situations, including working with middle managers to help them develop their management skills.
  • You'll update policies and ensure compliance with US and UK employment law.
  • You'll ensure we complete the ongoing people ops work efficiently, such as benefits administration and other routine tasks.
• Creatively improving the people operations function at GovAI:
  
  • Part of your role will be to identify what's not working well and make it better. This includes overhauling onboarding, creating and updating policies, and reducing bureaucracy that distracts staff from their core work.
  • As we scale and introduce more managers, you'll be responsible for ensuring they have the training, support, and resources they need to enforce performance standards and manage their teams well.

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

• Take over management of the team.
• Get up to speed on our systems (Rippling, etc.) and the current challenges the people ops function faces.
• Begin directly making progress on our biggest challenges, particularly overhauling onboarding and creating better resources for staff.
• Review and ensure compliance with US and UK employment law requirements.

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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 parts smoothly.
• Strong at attention to detail and project management.
• Strong at interpersonal communication and people management.
• Experienced with US and UK employment law, or able to quickly come up to speed on compliance requirements.
• Excited by the opportunity to use their careers to positively influence the lasting impact of artificial intelligence, in line with our organization's mission.
• Experienced at managing people operations in a research or think tank context is preferred but not required.

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

• A people ops manager at an organization in AI governance or tech.
• Someone who has led a people operations function within a rapidly scaling research organization or think tank.
• Someone with experience supporting researchers and knowledge workers, who understands the unique needs of research-intensive teams.
• A senior people ops professional interested in moving into a management role with significant autonomy.

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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 in-office, but are open to exceptional candidates who would need to work remotely. We are able to sponsor visas in the UK and can support relocation.

The People Ops Manager 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 £71,000 (~$95,000) and £93,000 (~$125,000) 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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