Operations Team: Project Manager for Oxford EA Professionals Hub

About CEA

The Centre for Effective Altruism’s mission is to build and nurture a global community of people who are thinking carefully about the world’s biggest problems and taking impactful action to solve them.
To foster this community, we run conferences, support hundreds of local groups, and provide online resources and forums for discussion.

About this role

The Operations team at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is looking for a Project Manager for its new Oxford office.
As a Project Manager, you’ll ensure the office is a place that boosts productivity, enables new ideas and collaborations to arise, and supports people’s long-term wellbeing. You’ll be the point of contact, decision maker, logistics and team manager for the renovation and refurbishment of the new office.
The role is initially a one-year development posting, with the potential for an extension depending on performance and circumstances. This role is a good fit for you if you would be passionate about managing a project over several months, working towards a finished product, and excited to help optimise the working environment for people trying to make a positive difference.
The Operations team at CEA — or “Ops” — provides world-class operational support to organisations that are expected to have an outsized positive impact. We do this by providing the financial, legal, administrative, grantmaking, logistical, and fundraising support that enables many high-impact organisations to grow, including: CEA, 80,000 Hours, the Forethought Foundation, EA Funds, Giving What We Can, the Centre for the Governance of AI, Longview Philanthropy, Asterisk, Wytham Abbey, and Non-trivial.

The project and the role

Our first office, Trajan House, has been a great success, and we can’t accommodate the growing demand.
With the new office, you’ll help build a second cornerstone for the professional EA community in Oxford. The new office will accommodate about 150 - 200 people and is located in Oxford city centre.
The Oxford offices will be used by highly impactful organisations such as CEA, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Global Priorities Institute, the Forethought Foundation, the Centre for the Governance of AI, Rethink Priorities, SecureDNA, and Our World in Data.
You’ll work closely with our Head of Property, Jonathan Michel, and the Oxford office team. The role will grow as you develop, but you’ll start out by focusing on the following key responsibilities:
  • Develop a detailed understanding of what makes for a great working space, the differences between co-working spaces, and of the needs of the future office users
  • Manage a team of interdisciplinary professionals who will be working on the project, and represent CEA’s interests in negotiations with those contractors
  • Make decisions – on aesthetics, functionality, budget, and timeline – in order to achieve the goal of the project, using EA principles as guidance
  • Track many sub-projects at once, making sure everything is on schedule and within the budget
  • Identify and understand various topics related to the refurbishment, including interior design, lighting, acoustics, structural construction works, HVAC and AC, architectural floor plans, and building materials
  • Identify, interview and assess different contractors required to fulfil alterations — and ensure a high quality of execution
  • Go through many stages of improving the floor plans, materials, colours, and finishes
  • Search for, and identify, new properties in Oxford that might fit our needs, arrange viewings, and identify and note key strengths and limitations of viewed properties

The ideal candidate

The ideal candidate will be:
  • Extremely organised: You’ll be managing lots of small tasks, sub-projects, and relationships. You’ll need to be organised to stay on top of them.
  • Keen to learn new things: You’ll need to have the ability to quickly learn new concepts and terminology, have conversations about them with experts, and make decisions based on your research.
  • Excited to learn about your users’ needs: You’ll spend a lot of time optimising the space for future users. This involves spending time on user interviews, visiting other spaces, and trying out things yourself to get a deep understanding of your users’ wants and needs.
  • Excellent with decision making: You’ll be making a lot of decisions all the time, especially about money-for-impact tradeoffs. You need to be comfortable both with large decisions in the range of millions of pounds as well as with small decisions about individual pieces of furniture.
  • Personable and great with communication: You’ll need to be confident while communicating with a variety of stakeholders, both verbally and in writing. Your role involves meeting and conversing with strangers in a professional setting on a regular basis both with EA and non-EA professionals.
  • Excited by work that demands speed, accuracy, and attention to detail: Operations work is often fast-paced. Mistakes can be costly, so it's really important for you to pay close attention to details.
  • Able to deal with many stakeholders: The ability to process, sort, and synthesise feedback from many different stakeholders.
  • Great at representing EA: You’ll represent the EA community and EA values in interactions with non-EA professionals in a truthful and professional manner.
We prefer, but don’t require:
  • Experience with (interior or architectural) design
  • A good sense for aesthetics
  • Experience in managing community building related projects

Salary and benefits

This is a full-time role, reporting to Jonathan Michel, Head of Property and is based full-time from the Oxford office.
Your starting salary range is £50,000 to £65,000, depending on experience. There may be flexibility in salary for exceptional candidates with significant experience.
Our benefits reflect our belief in investing in our people to build the strongest possible team. We want everyone to be able to perform at their best as we provide world-class support and maximise our positive impact.
  • Prioritised health & wellbeing: We provide private medical, vision and dental insurance, up to 3 weeks’ paid sick leave, and a mental health allowance of £5,000 each year.
  • Flexible working: You’re generally free to set your own schedule (with some overlapping hours with colleagues) and choose to work remotely or from our office at Trajan House in Oxford, UK.
  • World class working environment: Our Oxford office, Trajan House, comes with free vegan food, high-quality vegan caterers, a gym and supplements, showers, monitors and other ergonomic equipment to boost your productivity, along with the opportunity to network with people working there.
  • Generous vacation: We provide all team members with 25 days' holiday each year, plus bank (public) holidays.
  • Professional development opportunities: We offer a £5,000 allowance each year and build in opportunities for career growth through on-the-job learning, increasing responsibility, and role progression pathways.
  • Parental leave and support: New parents have up to 14 weeks fully-paid leave and up to 52 weeks leave in total. We also provide financial support for child care to help parents balance child care needs.
  • Pension and income protection plans: We offer a 10% employer / 0% employee pension or retirement contribution, and income protection insurance.
  • Equipment to help your productivity: We will pay for high-quality and ergonomic equipment (laptop, monitors, chair, etc.), in the office or at home if you work remotely.
  • Global team retreats: As we are a remote team, we hold in-person staff retreats twice a year to work on our plans and build strong working relationships.
Equivalent benefits are offered in different locations.

Our values

Our work is shaped by our core values:
We’re focused on excellent customer service
  • We solve problems for our customers before they’re aware of them
  • We proactively seek, and take action on, feedback
  • We respond to requests politely, quickly, and helpfully
We’re protective of our attention
  • We prioritise effectively, focusing on highest expected value
  • We design systems to prevent recurring problems
  • We take on new organisations and projects deliberately, and we’re comfortable saying no
We’re ambitious with our impact
  • We adapt our systems when the expected value is high
  • We carefully consider tradeoffs such as opportunity costs, benefits, and risks
  • We take on organisations and projects that will change the world

Apply

We’re looking for someone to start as soon as possible and will review applications on a rolling basis.
After considering your written application, we may invite you to complete a short trial task followed by further interviews. We’ll invite finalists to provide references and participate in a multi-day paid work trial.
We’re happy to consider applicants from overseas and may consider sponsorship if needed. CEA serves a global community, and our team works with people and organisations all over the world. We’re committed to fostering a culture of inclusion, and we encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from women, gender minorities, and people of colour who are enthusiastic about contributing to our mission. We’re an equal opportunity employer.
If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact callum@effectivealtruism.org.
This position is now closed.
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