Founding Operations Manager

Location: Remote, Europe/UK (London, UK in-person preferred)
Salary: £45,000–£65,000 gross annual base salary, depending on experience and location
Contract: Full-time, initially for two years; extension possible subject to continued funding
Start date: As soon as possible, November 2026 at the latest

For questions about this position, please contact hr@parallx.ai.

About Parallax

Parallax is a new UK-based non-profit research organisation developing open methods and infrastructure for white-box auditing of frontier AI systems. Our mission is to make evidence about models’ internal beliefs, goals, and plans a core component of AI evaluations, allowing evaluators to identify, explain, and predict safety-relevant failures more reliably.

We conduct open research to benefit society. We publish our findings, release our methods and infrastructure, and aim to make scientific contributions that remain useful as agentic capabilities of frontier models keep increasing. You can read more about our mission, strategy, and team on our About page.

About the role

We are recruiting an Operations Manager to lead the operational foundations of Parallax. As an early member of a fast-moving, highly collaborative team, you will work closely with the founders to translate our priorities into reliable processes and sound administrative, legal and financial decisions. You will also play a fundamental role in designing the processes that will drive Parallax’s success as it scales into a leading European actor in this space.

Our existing collaborations include the National Deep Inference Fabric (NDIF) at Northeastern University and Cohere’s AI Safety team. We also plan to engage with organisations across the evaluation and interpretability ecosystem, including the UK AI Security Institute, Meridian Labs, Goodfire, and METR.

Responsibilities

Core operations

• Build and maintain project management and documentation systems that support effective decisions and progress tracking.
• Develop and refine AI-assisted workflows for recurring operational tasks.
• Serve as the first point of contact for operational questions and unblock team members.

Research delivery

• Track research projects, collaborations, dependencies, budgets, deliverables, and deadlines.
• Coordinate research meetings and support milestones such as paper submissions and open-source releases.
• Manage compute, API budgets, equipment, software subscriptions, and external technical services.
• Support grant proposals and other project documentation.

Finance, legal, and compliance

• Coordinate budgeting, bookkeeping, invoicing, payments, reimbursements, and reporting with external providers.
• Maintain accurate records of funding, research expenses, compute costs, travel, and contractor payments.
• Track commitments, flag risks, and ensure timely follow-through.
• Coordinate contracts, insurance, registrations, data-processing agreements, and other compliance requirements with specialist advisers.
• Prepare and validate financial and operational information for the co-founders and trustees.

We do not expect you to be an accountant or lawyer. You should be able to recognise when specialist advice is needed and ensure that resulting actions are completed.

People operations and information systems

• Coordinate recruitment, including job postings, scheduling, work tests, references, and candidate communication.
• Manage onboarding and offboarding for employees, contractors, visitors, and collaborators.
• Help develop policies covering leave, expenses, travel, equipment, remote work, research conduct, and information security.
• Coordinate equipment, accounts, access controls, basic IT support, data handling, and backups.

Partnerships, travel, and events

• Support collaborations with universities, research institutes, AI companies, funders, and public-sector organisations.
• Coordinate partner meetings, agreements, and follow-ups.
• Organise team retreats, conference reimbursements, and visits from external researchers.
• Help strengthen Parallax’s institutional presence in Europe.

Special projects

As Parallax grows, you may lead projects such as:

• Supporting our spin-out as an independent non-profit.
• Establishing a new office or research hub, or setting up operations in a new jurisdiction.
• Coordinating a major funding round or grant application, and helping coordinate multi-institution research projects.

Qualities of a strong candidate

We expect strong candidates to demonstrate most of the following:

• A strong sense of ownership, initiative, and reliability, with an honest desire to make a concrete impact on pressing issues.
• 2+ years in operations-adjacent roles involving broad organisational responsibility, with experience in leading and delivering projects involving multiple stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with clear and compelling writing, low ego, and openness to feedback.
• Comfort working in an early-stage environment where priorities and duties may change rapidly, and soundness of judgment on when to take initiative and when to seek help.
• A service-oriented approach: you enjoy removing obstacles and enabling other people to do excellent work, and regularly track and address pending issues.
• Confidence working with budgets, contracts and administrative systems, and high integrity when handling confidential financial or personnel information.
• Professional fluency in English.

We care more about evidence of good judgment and execution than about a particular degree or career path. If the role interests you but you do not meet every criterion, we still encourage you to apply.

Location and working arrangements

We prefer candidates who can work regularly from the London AI Safety Initiative (LISA) offices. We are also open to remote candidates based elsewhere in Europe.

Remote team members will be expected to attend an initial team gathering in London and visit London regularly for collaborative research, planning, and team activities. Parallax can sponsor UK visas through Meridian Impact CIC and, where appropriate, can employ international candidates through an employer of record.

We offer flexible working hours and place greater emphasis on reliable collaboration and high-quality results than on a uniform daily schedule, but candidates must be able to work regularly with colleagues in European time zones.

Compensation and benefits

The gross annual base salary for this position ranges between £45,000–£65,000, depending on experience and location.

The role also includes:

• A 3% annual salary increase.
• A 5% year-end bonus.
• A 3% employer pension contribution.
• Unlimited PTO.
• £1,000 yearly personal development budget.
• A capable work laptop and other necessary equipment.
• Support for work-related travel and events.
• Covered lunch, snacks and coworking from the LISA offices if in person.
• Visa sponsorship or international employment support where applicable.

Hiring process

Our expected hiring process is:

1. An initial review based on your application
2. An introductory interview focused on your motivation and relevant experience.
3. Reference checks
4. A paid work test based on a realistic operational problem (time estimate: 3 hours)
5. A final interview with Parallax co-founders, discussing the work test and potential fit.

The work test will be compensated with £100. We aim to communicate clearly throughout the process and will let candidates know in advance what each stage involves.

Equal opportunities

Parallax is committed to building an inclusive working environment. We welcome applications regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, socioeconomic background, or educational pathway.

Where possible, we will make reasonable accommodations throughout the application and interview process.