Director of Operations / Chief Operating Officer
Note that applications for this role may be evaluated on a rolling basis.
We are hiring a Director of Operations or Chief Operating Officer. This role leads the operations functions that provide critical support to CEA's work. This is a senior role on our leadership team, reporting to our CEO, and collaborating closely with programs across CEA's portfolio and partners throughout the effective altruism (EA) ecosystem.
About CEA
The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) stewards the movement of people putting effective altruism principles into practice to solve the world's most pressing problems. We’re working to build a flourishing future by applying evidence, reason, and compassion to challenges like global poverty, animal suffering, and existential risks.
Our work centers on growing and supporting a global community of people who rigorously analyze where they can do the most good – and take action on those insights. Current strategic priorities include increasing understanding of effective altruism and its principles, growing the number of people who are motivated by EA principles to take significant action to address pressing problems, and diversifying funding sources for high-impact work.
We had significant success in 2025, building momentum within CEA. Our headcount grew from 42 to 66 core staff. Participation in our programs (e.g., events, courses, groups) grew by 20-25% year over year. We merged with EA Funds and are rapidly scaling up our capacity for grantmaking and associated fundraising: our first Fund staffed with full-time employees (EA Animal Welfare Fund), raised almost as much as the previous three years combined.
In 2026, we aim to maintain our momentum while laying the foundations for a step-change in the wider EA ecosystem’s growth trajectory from 2027 onward. Building our operations capabilities will be an essential part of that transition.
About the role
In this role, you'll be the senior leader responsible for the portfolio of operational functions that are critical to CEA's effectiveness. As a trusted advisor to our CEO, Zachary Robinson, and a member of our leadership team, you’ll be combining strategy, organizational leadership, managerial skills, and the ability to get things done in a fast-moving environment where priorities evolve over time.
An overarching theme around your responsibilities will be helping to build the next era of CEA. In 2026, we are expecting to grow our headcount by over 50%, launch new products for a step change in EA ecosystem growth, and raise tens of millions dollars for additional grantmaking. The operations team is CEA’s largest team, and having strong operational systems and cross-functional leadership will be foundational to our success.
We expect operations at CEA to look different from most other organizations in a few ways:
CEA sits at the intersection of foundation grantmaking and program-delivering nonprofit organizations.
We have a broad, ambitious strategic portfolio of projects, and we navigate the constraints of a multi-entity, multi-country setup to reflect our global impact.
Our ultimate goal is to increase the impact of the EA ecosystem as a whole, not just CEA. The most successful long-term version of this role involves not only making CEA stronger in isolation, but also serving as a leader to directly and indirectly support and strengthen a wide range of key partners.
You will be responsible for all of our operational functions, and for managing the growing team of 16+ staff working on them:
Finance and accounting: We manage our books in-house across entities in the US and UK. The finance team runs core accounting operations (AP, month-end), manages audits, supports regulatory filings (including the 990), and provides decision support through budgeting, forecasting, and cash/runway management.
Grants: We process grants for our EA Funds team and other grantmaking teams within CEA. This team is responsible for ensuring grants are processed compliantly, accurately, and quickly so donations can be put to work, while maintaining a robust system of record that supports later review and learning.
Legal: Our legal team supports decision-making across a wide range of strategic priorities. We regularly face complex trade-offs, and this team ensures that we identify and manage risk while doing world-changing work.
People Operations & Recruiting: This team is responsible for the employee lifecycle, onboarding, benefits administration, employee support, and offboarding, and hosts an in-house recruiting function. They ensure that our teams and our managers are supported, that our policies and processes serve our goals as we grow, and that we have the talent needed to support our ambitious goals.
Business operations / systems: These teams keep the organization running across our systems, tooling, and processes, including filling in gray areas that don't neatly fit into any one team. Our in-house Salesforce team maintains and improves our CRM, and is developing more connected, decision-useful data.
Office operations: Our Oxford office, Trajan House, supports CEA staff and EA community members.
Key responsibilities
Lead, support, and build a multi-functional operations team, including setting direction, coaching managers, improving team performance, and building healthy working norms.
Ensure CEA's core operational functions are reliable and fit for purpose as we scale, with an emphasis on building teams and systems that reduce friction for programmatic teams while maintaining strong oversight, governance, and risk management.
Drive continuous improvement across functional areas to improve execution, reliability, and scale of our work.
Serve as a strategic partner to the CEO and leadership team by translating strategic priorities into clear operational plans, decisions, processes, and execution across teams.
(For the right candidates) Act as an outward-facing spokesperson and build our relationships with other organizations.
What we’re looking for
You might be a great fit for the role of Director of Operations if you have:
Experience successfully managing and developing a team
Strong operational judgment and the ability to execute in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
High standards for reliability, integrity, and follow-through, and strong value alignment with CEA’s mission
Your candidacy for the Director role will be stronger the more experience you have of successfully:
Leading multi-disciplinary operational functions (e.g., finance, grants operations, legal/risk, people ops, business systems), even if you haven’t owned all of them directly
Overseeing budgeting, forecasting, and cash/runway management to support leadership decision-making
Scaling people operations and recruiting in a growing organization, including strengthening manager support and performance systems
Building systems of record and operational workflows that are fast, accurate, compliant, and audit-ready
Navigating legal and reputational risk tradeoffs effectively and in partnership with counsel
Driving cross-functional process improvement and “connective tissue” work across teams that don’t share a natural owner
Operating in a startup or other entrepreneurial environment where there wasn’t an established playbook
Communicating clearly with diverse stakeholders, including senior leaders, specialists, and external partners, and building trust in high-stakes situations
We're also open to finding someone ready to fill the role of Chief Operating Officer, which would require a candidate to meet all of the following criteria:
A strong track record of senior leadership in a complex organization, including setting direction, making high-quality decisions under uncertainty, and reliably translating strategy into execution.
An established track record of building and leading high-performing teams, including hiring and developing managers, creating clear ownership and accountability, setting high standards and expectations, and driving the feedback and performance management process to address performance issues, when needed.
Demonstrated ability to build scalable systems and processes that improve organizational throughput and reliability.
Excellent judgment around risk, compliance, and trust, with a track record of moving quickly while maintaining strong governance and credibility in high-accountability contexts.
Strong value alignment with effective altruism principles and CEA’s mission, including comfort with tradeoffs and a commitment to acting with integrity in a high-trust ecosystem.
A track record of operations and/or EA community leadership, with an ability to recruit excellent candidates and credibly serve as an organizational leader in support of the ecosystem.
While we want to hold open the possibility of hiring an exceptional candidate at our most senior level, we expect there are few candidates who meet all of these criteria, and that it’s significantly more likely we hire a Director of Operations. This would still be a senior role on our leadership team, reporting to the CEO, with scope to act autonomously across all of our critical operational functions. A successful Director will have the opportunity to grow into the COO role.
We can imagine being excited about candidates with a wide range of different skills and experience, and encourage you to apply even if you aren’t sure that you’re fully qualified.
Other information
This is a full-time, remote position. We prefer applicants who are able to work in time zones between US Pacific Time and CET.
We have an office in Oxford, UK, that you would have access to.
Start date: As soon as possible, though we recognize senior candidates may need time to transition from roles and we will work with the right candidate to find reasonable solutions.
Compensation
Director of Operations
US: total compensation package of $186,665, comprising a base salary of $169,696, and a 10% unconditional 401k contribution.
UK: total compensation package of £146,775, comprising a base salary of £133,432, and a 10% pension contribution.
Chief Operating Officer
US: total compensation package of $227,461, comprising a base salary of $206,783, and a 10% unconditional 401k contribution.
UK: total compensation package of £178,853, comprising a base salary of £162,593, and a 10% pension contribution.
Other locations: For candidates outside the US and UK, we base compensation on our UK salary structure and adjust for the cost of employment and fixed local benefit costs to create an equivalent package.
Note that for candidates at the Director level and above, we offer US market rate compensation, regardless of location. The shown rates in GBP match our US benchmarks, with our current standard exchange rate.
Benefits include private insurance, flexible work hours, a $6,000 / £5,000 annual professional development allowance, a $6,000 / £5,000 mental health support allowance, extended parental leave, ergonomic equipment, unconditional 10% pension / 401k contribution, 25 days of paid vacation, and more.
We are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from self-identified women and people of colour who are excited about contributing to our mission. The Centre for Effective Altruism is an equal opportunity employer. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact jobs@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.
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Evaluation plan
We expect the interview process to include the following steps, subject to changes:
Application
Test task 1
Short interview
Test task 2
Final interviews (3-4, non-sequential)
Reference checks