Senior Editorial Manager

WestEd; Alameda (CA); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

WestEd is seeking a Senior Editorial Manager to lead its editorial team and ensure critical products are delivered on time and to high quality standards. This hands-on role combines scoping, assigning, editing complex manuscripts, and guiding editorial staff across development, copyediting, and QA.

You'll work with designers, accessibility experts, and project staff to uphold evidence-based content, manage timelines, and improve processes.

Qualifications

• Experience leading editorial teams and managing complex manuscripts.
• Strong project management and capacity planning skills.
• Ability to guide editorial standards and QA workflows.
• Hands-on editing with collaboration with designers, accessibility experts.

Responsibilities

• Provide developmental editing on high-visibility, complex, and sensitive products (e.g., research and evaluation reports, policy briefs, practitioner guides, infographics, agency collateral materials).
• Uphold WestEd's standards for accurate, objective, evidence-based content.
• Diagnose and resolve structural problems, revise content for overall logic and clarity, draft suggested text.
• Collaborate with designers, proofreaders, and accessibility experts on the CCS team.
• Identify accessibility issues and suggest adjustments that make documents more inclusive.
• Work iteratively with authors to improve their products and writing.
• Lead intake for new products and publications; provide estimates and planning information.
• Manage labor allocation across editing, design, proofreading, and accessibility capacity.
• Lead an editorial team of four direct reports; conduct performance reviews and support professional growth.
• Guide the team's use of AI in editing with clear expectations.

Skills

Editorial leadership

Project management

Developmental editing

Copyediting & proofreading

Quality assurance

AI in editing

Tools

Asana

Job description

About WestEd

As a community of over 1,000 researchers, practitioners, consultants, and administrative professionals from all backgrounds and life experiences, we are committed to making a qualitative difference in the lives of youth, children, and adults. We conduct and apply research, develop evidence-based solutions, and provide consulting services across the country in both rural and urban communities to improve equitable outcomes for individuals from infancy through adulthood. Serving as trusted partners in the areas of education, health, and justice, our teams enhance capacity within communities and school districts to prioritize impact - asking the right questions, customizing methodologies, developing relevant tools, and implementing best practices specific to a diverse range of stakeholder needs.

WestEd supports individual initiative, excellence, and hard work of all individuals in our hiring and work practices. WestEd complies with all applicable federal and state anti-discrimination laws, as well as OFCCP requirements. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, or status as a protected veteran.

SPECIAL NOTICE REGARDING THE WORK LOCATION OF THIS POSITION-Although WestEd provides the option of working at one of its facilities for employees, many roles allow employees to choose to work remotely for their own convenience. The decision to allow remote work at the employee's convenience is based on the requirements of the position or project in question.

Position Description

The Senior Editorial Manager leads WestEd's editorial team and ensures that the agency's most important products are delivered on time and meet WestEd's rigorous quality standards. As a nonpartisan, mission-driven research agency, WestEd's credibility rests on content that is accurate, objective, and grounded in evidence, and this role helps ensure that the agency's products meet that benchmark.In addition to guiding the quality assurance (QA) process for the agency's high-visibility and high-stakes products, this person helps staff across WestEd write more effectively and,as a member of the Communications leadership team, helps shape how the department supports the agency.

This is a hands-on role, not a purely strategic one. Most days, you'll be scoping, assigning, and managing projects and editing complex manuscripts. Alongside that work, you'll lead an experienced editorial team made up of two senior developmental editors, a copyediting and proofreading manager, and a senior copyeditor and proofreader. You'll also be a key resource for the agency's most complex questions about writing, editorial standards, and quality.

The time split below is approximate and mayshift from week to week.When priorities collide, delivering high-visibility products on time takes precedence over agency guidance and other projects.

• Developmental editing (~35%)
• Project management (~35%)
• Leading the editorial team (~15%)
• Agency guidance on writing, editing, and product development (~10%)
• Additional editorial and Communications work (~5%)

Candidates should expect all of these, every week, and should be energized by that mix rather than looking to move away from hands-on work. All productscome to us on others' timelines, and we're accountable for getting those products through the QA process on time.

Key Responsibilities

Developing editing (~35%)

• Provide developmental editing on high-visibility, complex, and sensitive products (e.g., research and evaluation reports, policy briefs, practitioner guides, infographics, agency collateral materials) with the aim of making each as clear and useful as possible for its intended audience and purpose.
• Uphold WestEd's standards for accurate, objective, evidence-based content, ensuring that claims are well supported and appropriately qualified.
• Diagnose and resolve structural problems, revise content for overall logic and clarity, draft suggested text, and rework sentences and paragraphs for readability and consistency.
• Work collaboratively with designers, proofreaders, and accessibility experts on the CCS team to prepare individual products for public release.
• Identify accessibility issues and suggest adjustments that make documents more inclusive for people with disabilities.
• Work iteratively with authors as they review and approve edits, serving as a thought partner to improve their individual products and to help them become stronger writers over time.

Project Management (~35%)

• Lead intake for new products and publications: Read each request; judge the scope, complexity,and level of editorial support it needs; and decide whether it can be assigned and started right away or needs an intake meeting to clarify purpose, audience, and scope with project staff.
• Serve as the editorial team's primary point of contact for project staff and leaders: Provide estimates and planning information, negotiate timelines and scope, and partner with project leadership on how editorial capacity is scoped and funded in new projects.
• Make labor allocation decisions across all concurrent projects to ensure effective and efficient support, balancing editing, design, proofreading, and accessibility capacity.
• Serve as the default project manager for the wide range of "in-between" products that are not assigned a developmental editor.
• Track work in Asana (our project management system); anticipate bottlenecks; and coordinate across editorial, design, proofreading, and accessibility staff to resolve them.
• Evaluate and continually refine standards and processes for intake, estimation, prioritization, and QA workflow so that products are delivered on time.

Leading the editorial team (~15%)

• Lead an experienced, collegial team of four direct reports, setting clear expectations and giving regular, candid feedback.
• Serve as a Talent Manager for these direct reports: Support their professional growth and job satisfaction through regular check-ins, development plans, and stretch opportunities and conduct their midyear and annual performance reviews.
• Draw on the team's extensive expertise and institutional knowledge: Seek their input on everything from editorial standards and processes to workloads and priorities.
• Delegate decisions and problem-solving to support the team's autonomy, judgment, and ownership.
• Serve as a sounding board on complex or sensitive editorial issues escalated by editorial team members, making the final call when needed.
• Ensure editorial quality and consistency across the team's output, identifying recurring patterns and coaching team members on editorial judgment and craft as needed.
• Guide the team's responsible use of AI in editing: Set clear expectations for when and how it's used and