Business Operations Associate

About the role

You will own the compliance tracker and ensure that all federal, state, and local filing deadlines are monitored and met without delay. You will provide finance and accounting support by assisting with budget tracking, expense review, and financial reporting where needed. You will assist with HR operations by managing onboarding and offboarding processes and maintaining up-to-date employment policies and the company handbook. You will support travel and events coordination, handling logistics for internal and external activities as they arise. You will maintain and grow FAR.Labs, the AI safety-focused co-working space in Berkeley, by supporting event logistics and member services. You will assist with IT coordination by providing initial support and liaising with vendors to keep tools and systems running smoothly. You will take on special projects as they arise, including vendor coordination, goal tracking, internal policies, and process improvement initiatives. You will partner closely with the Business Operations Manager and the COO to ensure reliable execution across all operational domains. You will act as a dependable first responder, owning operational tickets and triaging incoming requests to keep the organization moving.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Operations delivery: Own operational tickets, triaging incoming requests, and providing first-responder support across the team while maintaining policies and driving continuous improvement to clear roadblocks.
• Finance & compliance: Own and maintain FAR.AI's compliance calendar, tracking federal, state, and local filing deadlines and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks, while supporting systematization and automation of compliance obligations.
• IT coordination: Provide initial IT support and coordinate with vendors to keep the team's tools and systems running, and coordinate equipment provisioning and sourcing as needs arise.
• HR operations: Support end-to-end onboarding and offboarding processes, HR compliance, employment policies, and the maintenance of the company handbook to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Coworking space operations: Support operations of FAR.Labs, including event logistics, member coordination, and day-to-day management of the Berkeley co-working environment.
• Special projects: Take on ad hoc operations projects ranging from vendor coordination and goal tracking to internal policies and cross-functional process improvement.
• Compliance oversight: Monitor and update compliance trackers to ensure all regulatory requirements are addressed in a timely and accurate manner.
• Financial coordination: Assist with financial operations by supporting budget tracking, expense categorization, and reporting to maintain clear financial oversight.
• Cross-functional communication: Serve as the central point of contact for operational queries, summarizing situations accurately and asking good questions to clarify needs.
• Vendor and supplier management: Coordinate with external vendors, manage procurement processes, and ensure that service level agreements are upheld.
• Process ownership: Own recurring operational workflows, ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks and that teams trust the reliability of support.
• Project coordination: Track goals and timelines for special projects, aligning stakeholders and documenting decisions to keep initiatives on schedule.
• Systems maintenance: Help maintain internal tools and documentation, ensuring that policies, playbooks, and operational records are current and accessible.
• Continuous improvement: Identify inefficiencies in current operations, propose practical improvements, and implement changes that reduce manual effort and increase reliability.

Requirements

• Evidence of real results in past roles - things you have delivered or problems you have solved while juggling several responsibilities at once, where experience or seniority matters less than what you have actually accomplished.
• Comfort working across multiple operational domains simultaneously, including finance, HR, compliance, IT, and projects, even if you are not an expert in every area, because you will be required to learn quickly.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to write a clear email, summarize a situation accurately, and ask good questions to uncover needs and constraints.
• Reliability with details, particularly on compliance and finance tasks, where a missed deadline or a wrong number is a real issue, and you consistently flag issues proactively before they escalate.
• Demonstrated service mindset, where you get energy from helping unblock others, supporting colleagues, and ensuring that the practical work of the organization runs smoothly.
• Ownership of operational deliverables, showing that you follow through on commitments, manage competing priorities, and maintain quality even when juggling multiple requests.
• Ability to manage confidential information with discretion, understanding the importance of privacy in handling sensitive employee, financial, and compliance data.
• Willingness to work closely with a distributed team, coordinating across locations and time zones while maintaining alignment on priorities and standards.

Practical notes

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