Operations Generalist

About Constellation

Constellation is an independent research center that brings together people throughout the AI safety ecosystem to accelerate insight, research, and talent through better cooperation. Unlike a conference or summit, Constellation operates continuously, in the form of a physical workspace as well as conference-style talks, workshops, and training bootcamps. Continuous operation allows for relationships and conversations to develop over time, meaningfully fostering trust, collaboration, and shared insight. It also makes Constellation a natural field-building hub by rapidly inspiring, orienting, and connecting people who are newer to the field.

Based in Berkeley, CA, our shared workspace hosts over 100 people per week across dozens of AI safety organizations in nonprofits, academia, industry, and government. Hundreds of other researchers spend time at Constellation for shorter visits each year. We believe this is the strongest and highest-output network of AI safety researchers in the world; dozens of participants in past Constellation programs have gone on to safety-focused roles at companies such as METR, Redwood Research, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and the US and UK Safety Institutes.

For more information, see our research focus areas and selected publications from Constellation fellows.

About the role

We’re seeking a Operations Generalist to increase our team’s capacity and scale up our impact.  Reporting to the Director of Operations, you will be responsible for a flexible portfolio of operations projects to support and enable our AI safety research center and programming. 

The exact scope of responsibilities will depend on your experience and areas of expertise. It will include some combination of: workspace design, IT operations/support, and/or facilities management. 

The ideal candidate has significant professional experience in 1-2 of these domains in a fast-paced and dynamic work environment. (The vibe and pace is much closer to a growing startup than a traditional nonprofit.) In this cross-functional role, you’ll work closely with both our Operations and Programs teams. You’ll also get to interact with and support many of the world’s top AI safety experts. 

This is an in-person, full-time position. This role requires being onsite from 9am-5pm on weekdays. Periodic work is required on evenings and weekends, e.g. when handling urgent issues.

Example responsibilities

The scope can be tuned to focus on particular areas of expertise, or to accommodate a generalist who thrives on variety. Potential responsibilities could include:

Facilities Operations

- Managing vendor and contractor relationships

- Identifying and scoping potential improvements to our collaborative workspace

- Planning and scheduling repairs

- Monitoring desk, office, and meeting room utilization

- Managing storage and inventory 

Workspace Design

- Designing new room layouts and workspaces

- Researching and purchasing furniture, equipment, and decor

- Identifying and testing user experience improvements

- Coordinating room configuration and setup

IT Operations / Support

- Providing end-user support

- Configuring and troubleshooting A/V equipment

- Developing a roadmap for IT improvements and upgrades

- Planning and/or supporting IT projects (for example, upgrading our guest sign-in kiosks)

Skills Needed

- Experience owning one or more of the above operations domains at a fast-growing organization

- Able to reliably track, manage, and prioritize a high volume of tasks, threads, and deadlines

- Experience balancing urgent, day-to-day requests with longer-term initiatives 

- Skilled at synthesizing complex and ambiguous situations into concrete, cohesive plans

- Excellent at tracking project progress and consistently hitting key milestones

- Able to gracefully set and maintain clear expectations

- Can drive partially scoped projects to the finish line

- Enjoy hands-on operations work

- Clear, concise written communication

- Experience managing relationships with external vendors and partners (preferred, not required)-

You might be a good fit for this role if you:

- Care about AI safety and improving researcher productivity

- Enjoy working in a fast-paced office environment

- Love creating to-do lists and crossing tasks off your list

- Can effectively prioritize and juggle a variety of competing requests

- Care a lot about improving the user/customer experience

- Are entrepreneurial and like learning new skills

- Like taking responsibility for and owning your portfolio of work

This is a full time, on-site role. Our Berkeley office is a few steps from the nearest BART (metro) and bus stop. On-site parking is also available.

The ideal candidate for this role will have some combination of the skills and experiences described above.  If you are not sure if you are qualified, we strongly encourage you to apply anyway.  Beyond the qualifications outlined, our priority is building a team that will help humanity safely navigate the development of transformative AI.  If you would be excited to do this work, we’d love to consider you.

‍We value diversity in all respects and base our hiring decisions on the needs of the organization and individual qualifications.  We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age or disability.

Salary : $90,000 - $140,000