Chief Operating Officer

Apart Research; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apart Research is seeking a high-ambition operations leader to scale our research programs and multi-entity framework. You will own compliance, finance, HR, recruiting, and vendor management, shaping processes to support growth while maintaining agility.

The role blends strategic leadership with hands-on execution in a remote-first environment. You will work closely with the CEO to design structures, coordinate cross-border activities, and enable researchers to form new initiatives.

Qualifications

• Experience scaling operations in a research or mission-driven setting.
• Managed a 501(c)(3) and ensured compliance.
• Worked in a fast-paced, technical environment with AI safety exposure.
• Set up processes and tooling to support growth at scale.
• Familiar with Ramp, Deel and common collaboration tools.

Responsibilities

• Hire and manage the operations generalists to scale programs.
• Lead fiscal sponsorship for Sprint and Fellowship projects.
• Own operations end-to-end including compliance, finance, HR and recruiting.
• Scale the Research Division with planning, onboarding and role boundaries.
• Design hiring processes and manage external recruiting vendors.
• Oversee multi-entity structure across US and Europe and coordinate funding.

Skills

Scale-up leadership

501(c)(3) compliance

AI safety exposure

Operations leadership

Vendor management

HR & recruiting policies

Notion

Slack

Discord

Google Workspace

Tools

Ramp

Deel

Notion

Slack

Discord

Google Workspace

Claude Code

Codex

Orca

Job description

Application deadline: 27 October 2026, end of day (Anywhere on Earth).

About Apart

Apart Research is an AI safety organization working across two divisions.

Field building: we run remote-first Sprints (hackathons) and Fellowships on AI safety topics, and have done so over three years. With the Sprints we bring new talent to the AI Safety ecosystem and with the Fellowships we upskill them and help them create peer-reviewed research in many different AI Safety topics.

Research: our Research Division builds independent evaluations of harmful-manipulation for the EU AI Office, ahead of AI Act enforcement. We've co-authored work with the EU AI Office in Science , contributed to the drafting of the EU AI Act's Code of Practice, and sit on the EU Experts Forum on AI and the AI Act Advisory Forum . We also assembled a consortium with CeSIA, Equistamp, Transluce and FAR.AI that won the EU AI Office's evaluation tender on harmful manipulation, a 36-month programme.

Core Responsibilities

• Hire and manage the operations generalists who'll help our programs (Sprints, Fellowships and new initiatives) scale.
  • We already have solid templates and automations - we need someone to bring in and lead the operations needed for them.
  • We would also like to launch new programs that will need special operations.
• Lead fiscal sponsoring for projects that we incubate inside Apart. Some Sprint and Fellowship teams/projects are literally becoming orgs! You will lead the fiscal sponsorship efforts to make sure we can make it easier for researchers to set up their own orgs.
• Own operations end-to-end: manage compliance, finance, HR, recruiting, vendors and internal systems. No operational question should default to the CEO.
• Scale and growth: scale the Research Division several times over, without losing focus, alignment or agility. That means building capacity ahead of growth: hiring throughput, onboarding that gets people productive fast, clear role boundaries as teams split, and planning and reporting that still work at three times the headcount. You'll decide what to formalize, what to leave loose, and when each shift needs to happen.
• Hiring: own process design, rubric quality, and offer decisions across all roles, and manage our external recruiting vendor. Sourcing, screening calls and candidate communications are bought per round. Role definition and final decisions are made jointly with the CEO with input from the team.
• Leadership: You'll inherit some direct reports plus our existing contractors and vendors. Your job is to centralize these operations and scale it into a dedicated operations team over your first year, doing much of the work yourself when there's no one to hand it to.
• Own our multi-entity structure: Apart runs as a US 501(c)(3) alongside a European entity now being set up, with staff and contractors across several countries and funding moving between jurisdictions.
  • Decide how the structure should work: which entity holds which activity, how money and employment should move between them, what to build in-house versus outsource, and what the structure needs to look like in two entities.
  • Manage the EU entity while protecting our 501(c)(3) standing. You'll need to know where the lines sit on what can be spent, on whom, what needs documenting, what needs counsel, and when to stop and ask.
• Manage our external providers: Liaise with accounting, payroll and EOR, counsel, insurance making sure the right work reaches each one, and judging whether each still earns its keep.

Required Qualifications

You have a high agency mindset but have the judgement to know when to bring in outside counsel, and the confidence to act without waiting for permission. You also know how to cut through complexity and keep an organization agile as it grows.

• Have been through at least one prior scale-up. Ideally a research organization.
• Managed a 501(c)(3) entity and continuously ensured compliance.
• Worked in a mission-driven research organization or a fast-paced, technical environment. Ideally with some exposure to AI safety, effective altruism, or adjacent research communities. We want to stay agile and focused as we grow.
• Have set up organizations and the processes behind them: tools like Ramp and Deel, compliance frameworks, and the operational scaffolding a growing organization needs.
• Comfortable learning and using common workplace tools such as Notion, Slack, Discord, Google Workspace, and AI tools such as Claude Code, Codex or Orca, to improve day-to-day workflows.
• Comfortable that your public-facing role and decision-making authority may start narrower if you're new to AI safety, and widen as you build context and trust in the space.

Nice to Have

• Are familiar with the AI safety ecosystem. If you don't have the context yet, you should be able to pick up context fast.
• Supported, and worked closely with, researchers before.
• Managed a multi-entity organization (ideally US and European).
• Own HR and recruiting policies and infrastructure. Run hiring processes that scale as we grow and ensure that we recruit and retain the best people.
• Helped in fundraising rounds.

Application Process

Applications close on 27 October 2026, end of day (Anywhere on Earth). They are reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

The stages below aren't fixed. We'll adapt the process to fit the candidate.

• Initial application (CV and short questions)
• Screening call
• Paid work test and interview
• Meet-the-team call
• Paid work trial (1-2 days, remote/in-person) and reference checks
• Offer made to the successful candidate

Apart Research is an equal opportunity organization and welcomes applicants of all backgrounds. We may use AI-assisted tools to support review; all applications are read by a human and final decisions are made by people. We process the information you submit to assess your application and may match it against our candidate-sourcing records (public professional information and talent-directory entries) to give reviewers fuller context; we keep application data only as long as needed for recruiting, including considering you for future roles, and delete it on request. Questions about the role or how your data is processed: [e-mail].