Work at Wild Animal Initiative
Applications closed
As of 29 August 2023, we are no longer accepting applications for this position.
This is an archived copy of the job description for your reference.
Basics
Posted: August 10, 2023
Job title: Science Team Coordinator
Department: Science Department — all programs
Application deadline: 9 am ET — Tuesday, August 29, 2023
Application materials:
Please submit an application using this form. You are welcome to preview all questions before beginning. We estimate that completing the application form will take you no longer than one hour, but there is no time limit.
We are not asking for cover letters or resumes for this role. If you’re interested, this academic paper provides an overview of the reasons to favor application forms that collect specific kinds of information over resumes and cover letters.
The form will ask you to provide the following:
Answers to multiple choice questions regarding your skills.
Short answer replies relating to your previous work experience and work interests.
Application process timeline:
Phone screening: Early September 2023
Stage 2 (skills assessment): Mid-September 2023
Stage 3 (video interviews): Early October 2023
Target start date: October 23, 2023, or as soon as possible.
Terms of employment
Location:
Full-time remote; exempt position.
Applicants who will be working in the United Kingdom or Germany are preferred; those working in the United States who can maintain the schedule requirements (below) are also permitted to apply.
Note: We are not able to sponsor work visas and are only considering applicants who are eligible to work and be based in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States at this time. If you are eligible to work in one of these countries and are willing to relocate to one of them, you may indicate this in your application.
Must be able to maintain at least six working hours per day that overlap with 8 am - 5 pm in the Central European time zone (CET). Must be able to meet with colleagues during business hours in the US-Eastern time zone a few times a week, and all US time zones a few times a month. Due to the global nature of our operations, some meetings may fall outside of local business hours.
COVID-19:
Public health is a high priority of ours. We strongly encourage employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
We will consider requests for reasonable accommodation regarding vaccination based on medical or religious reasons, in accordance with our policy and applicable law.
Expected start date:
October 23, 2023, or as soon as possible after the hiring process completes.
Expected Salary:
$54,710.69 to $66,868.63, depending on the approximate cost of living in your area.
For a complete description of how we set and raise salaries, see our salary algorithm.
Generous paid time off and leave policies. Typical structure includes:
Four weeks of paid vacation time, 13 paid holidays, and an additional paid two-week organization-wide break at the end of December.
Two weeks of paid sick leave, which may also be used for caring for human or non-human family members.
Note: Leave policies vary slightly by country of employment due to local regulations.
A remote environment that allows you to balance work and family requirements and a technology stipend to cover associated costs.
A friendly, open culture that encourages feedback, collaboration, experimentation, and evidence-based innovation.
Opportunities for advancement as our team and programs continue their growth trajectory.
Leadership and colleagues dedicated to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, including a dedicated internal JEDI committee, annual staff and manager training to combat our biases at work, and support for employees with visible and invisible disabilities.
Reimbursement for books you buy and read for professional development.
US only: Comprehensive health and dental insurance with vision insurance available.
Reports to:
Science Director Vittoria Elliott (she/her)
Travel:
Ability to independently self-book travel to the United States and Europe for staff retreats (one to three per year) and other in-person events or meetings (zero to five per year), including driving or taking flights for extended durations.
Must be able to obtain legal permission to make such trips (e.g., by having a valid passport and obtaining any necessary visas for travel).
Responsibilities
Position mission statement:
As Wild Animal Initiative’s Science Team Coordinator, you will work closely with the Science Director to enable greater productivity and efficiency for the Science Team. You will support the Director in facilitating better coordination, strengthening communication, and improving efficiency to keep the Science Team on track, so they can focus their energy on our scientific programs.
You will also work with other departments to ensure clear and effective communication regarding collaborative projects with the Science Team. You will be expected to support the Science Director by owning responsibility for critical administrative tasks such as developing team workflows, staying on top of logistics, and supporting the Director’s role as a team manager. In addition, you will be expected to support and develop coordination systems across the Science Team and the organization as a whole to facilitate greater coordination and collaboration among Science Team members, and cooperation and understanding among departments.
We’re looking for a systems-minded individual who feels comfortable in both operations and scientific contexts to keep things scientifically accurate and operationally sound.
Supervisory responsibilities:
None currently, but if you are interested and able, we are open to your responsibilities evolving to include managing other staff as opportunities arise.
Core responsibilities:
Project coordination and management:
Asana support: You will help Science Team members design and implement projects in Asana and support them in keeping their projects up to date.
Objective tracking: Liaising with the Project and Impact Manager, you will ensure that the Science Team is effectively tracking their objectives, activities, and impacts based on our annual plans.
Feedback gathering: You will gather or identify concerns regarding projects and systems and determine how best to address them, including assessing what needs to be brought to the Science Director.
Compliance: You will stay abreast of Science Team projects to support the Director in ensuring compliance with our internal standards (e.g., JEDI standards, scientific rigor standards).
General administrative support:
Administration: You will support the Science Director with general administrative duties.
Calendaring: You will handle calendaring on behalf of the Science Director, including arranging team meetings, ensuring that meetings are held at times all attendees can participate, and checking that participants are prepared for meeting topics.
Assisting: You will help with general assistant-type tasks, such as proof-reading written materials for conferences.
Travel support: You will coordinate with the People Operations Coordinator to support planning and booking travel on behalf of the Science Team.
Data entry and management
Summarizing: You will distill key information from conference, meeting, and other interactions (including reviewing notes) to provide summaries and action items to Science Team members.
Training: You will support and train the Science Team in utilizing existing resources and applications.
Data entry: You will enter data (e.g., contacts, metrics for programs) into shared databases (e.g., using Airtable, Google Sheets, Salesforce).
Maintaining and improving systems
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): You will write, review, and update SOPs, noticing when they are out of date and coordinating feedback from colleagues for improvement.
Resources: You will identify novel resources needed by the Science Team for their work.
Conferences: You will help the Science Team develop and maintain a system for ensuring conference registration and preparation, and ensure it is conducted efficiently and according to schedule.
Coordination: You will coordinate with other departments (e.g., the Communications Department) to develop and maintain processes to ensure cross-department projects happen efficiently (e.g., timely communications review of Science Team products).
Team support and collaboration:
Meeting prep: You will prepare meeting agendas, support meeting prep, identify required attendees, take notes, and document action items.
Feedback: You will facilitate feedback sharing among the Science Team, including designing processes and arranging meetings that encourage open feedback and reminding staff of our internal feedback norms.
Relationships: You will help build relationships with the Science Team to monitor needs, anticipate and proactively address requests and questions, and identify issues that need to be brought to the Science Director.
Onboarding: You will help the Director onboard new staff to the Science Team, including training new staff on internal SOPs and existing software.
Professional Development: You will identify, schedule, and arrange training for the professional development needs of the Science Team.
Other duties — duties, responsibilities, and activities may change or new ones may be assigned at any time with or without notice.
Qualifications
We do not require any specific academic credentials or prior work experience for you to be considered for this position. If you think you’re underqualified, please apply. In our last two hiring rounds, multiple candidates reached the final stage even though they considered themselves underqualified — they said they only applied because of this sentence.
This role will require you to have the following qualifications:
Process review: The ability to review internal systems, identify potential challenges, and design effective solutions to facilitate improved coordination, streamline processes, and enhance efficiency.
Originality and idea fluency: The ability to come up with lots of unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
Administrative skills and knowledge: Ability to organize documents and enter data in Google Workspace products, Airtable, and Asana, or to quickly learn how to do so.
Calendering and scheduling: Ability to wrangle schedules and set up meetings in Google Calendar or similar software to ensure efficient time management.
Management skills: Ability to recognize strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and abilities among team members and design support systems or identify resources that can contribute to a productive and collaborative work environment.
Familiarity with biological research: Understanding of the scientific method, scientific citations, and concepts/terminology in biology/ecology/animal welfare science sufficient to enable you to accurately summarize science team notes, communicate ideas from meetings, and follow discussion about research implications and priorities.
For example, training or experience in biological research, such as an undergraduate or Master’s degree that included a research project in biology, or equivalent familiarity with biological research terminology and processes in an academic context.
Please note that we genuinely encourage applicants with equivalent experience and degree level qualification is not required for this role. We anticipate that individuals who are able to generally understand the papers in our Library will meet this requirement.
Time management and decision making: Proven ability to juggle multiple tasks, set priorities, and make informed decisions to meet project deadlines and objectives.
Effective and socially perceptive communication: Demonstrated ability to actively listen and give full attention to others to understand and accurately report their perspectives, reactions, and motivations. Skill in asking relevant questions to improve understanding over time.
Communication skills: The ability to arrange and communicate information in a way that makes sense to others, to take accurate notes, and to consider the audience when writing and speaking.
Service orientation: Enjoyment of jobs that involve supporting others.
This role might also benefit from you having some of the following qualifications. You could still be a highly competitive candidate even if you don’t have any of these qualifications.
Software skills: Existing experience with Asana, Google Workspace products, Airtable, or Salesforce.
Remote experience: Existing experience or demonstrated enjoyment of a remote work setting.
Adaptability/flexibility: Enjoyment of jobs with considerable variety.
About our mission
Wild Animal Initiative is a remote 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to understanding and improving the lives of wild animals. Our work funds cutting-edge science, supports researchers, and contributes to original research.
We are looking to work with people that approach our mission as an inherently inclusive endeavor and celebrate the differences of others. We strongly encourage Black, Brown, Indigenous, Latino/a/x, and people of other historically marginalized communities to apply and welcome applicants of any religion, age, origin, class, citizenship, parental status, disability status, genetics, veteran status, sexual orientation, and gender. We view diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and ways of understanding the world and wild animals as an asset which can improve the performance, collective intelligence, innovation, and quality of science at WAI, while also addressing the exclusionary aspects of the spaces we operate in. We integrate these values into all aspects of our work and seek to constantly improve our implementation of them. We seek to benefit and share power with everyone at Wild Animal Initiative.
Please note that we are unable to sponsor work visas at this time. Candidates must be eligible to work in their respective jurisdictions.
If you have any questions about our hiring process or open positions, or if you would like to recommend excellent candidates, please reach out to us at hiring@wildanimalinitiative.org.
To express your interest in working with us in a capacity not currently open, please submit your information via our Job Interest Form. By doing so, you will be added to our talent database, which we consult for new roles and when recommending candidates to other mission-aligned organizations.
Thank you for considering Wild Animal Initiative as the next part of your vocational journey. We hope to hear from you!
Requests for accommodation: If you are a qualified individual with a disability, we welcome requests for reasonable accommodations if you are unable or limited in your ability to apply for this job as a result of your disability. You can request reasonable accommodations by contacting Hiring Manager Emily Sharp at emily.sharp@wildanimalinitiative.org.