Pioneer Labs - Operations Associate

Operations Associate

Pioneer Labs is seeking a full-time, in-person Operations Associate to join our team in Emeryville, California. This role is central to keeping our organization running smoothly and supporting a world-class team of scientists tackling ambitious goals. You'll handle the systems, logistics, and coordination that make day-to-day work possiblewhether it's managing onboarding, planning events, or keeping finances and compliance organized. You'll work closely with our external operations consultants (finance, HR, legal) and our Lab Manager, who oversees technical operations.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment, enjoys solving a wide range of problems, and takes pride in building strong, efficient operations behind the scenes.

Key Responsibilities

Core Operations : Manage onboarding / offboarding, IT and software accounts, credit cards, and office assets. Coordinate support from external HR, payroll, and bookkeeping contractors.

Compliance Coordination : With guidance from senior consultants, manage HR, nonprofit, and business complianceensuring required training, handbooks, filings, and registrations are current. Coordinate with tax and audit consultants yearly.

Events & Culture : Organize internal gatherings, including team events, retreats, and seminars that strengthen the team and our relationships with collaborators.

External Event Planning : Lead planning and execution of Pioneer-hosted scientific eventssuch as annual 30+ person workshopsthat create venues for scientific discussion and community engagement. Manage logistics, communications, and day-of coordination.

Communications and Branding : Maintain website and newsletter updates, coordinate open-science publishing logistics (typesetting, DOI generation), and oversee creation of visual assets and swag that reflect Pioneer's identity.

Key Experience and Competencies

Operations Experience : 13+ years of experience in operations, administration, or similar "get-things-done" roles (startups a plus).

High Agency and Ownership : Strong problem-solving skills with a bias to action. Collaborative and low-ego : willing to own the big and the small. Proactive and organized. Excited to learn new things.

People-Centered : Experience with organizing both internal and external events. A genuine "people person" who enjoys connecting with others, building relationships, and fostering community. A good communicator and listener.

Compliance and Finance (preferred, but not essential) : Familiar with HR compliance, contracts, and financial coordination in a startup or nonprofit environment.

About Pioneer

Things to know about us :

We're Results-Focused Rather Than Process-Focused : We work on problems with genuine basic science unknowns, and as a result, it's important for us to iterate quickly and be good at creative problem-solving.

We're a Small, Tight-Knit, Multidisciplinary Team : To achieve our goals, experts in everything under the sunmicrobiology, space missions, operations, and moreneed to work together effectively. Diversity of thought and skill accelerates science, so we aim to hire people with a wide range of expertise, identities, technical backgrounds, and experiences. People thrive on the team when they are good at written and verbal communication, are excited to learn new things from others, and enjoy working on projects that are bigger than any individual.

We Do No-Bullshit Science : We've very lucky to get to work on science that is extremely cool! And yet, no amount of hype will save a flight test if the science or engineering doesn't check out. We aim to make things that actually work. That requires constant, level-headed assessment of our own results, genuine curiosity, and a healthy mix of ambition and humility.

Salary and Benefits

Pioneer Labs takes a market-based approach to compensation. We benchmark salaries based on equivalents in for-profit biotech startups. The salary for this role will likely be $100k-$140k / year. The candidate's starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, and interview performance.

In addition, we offer benefits including :

Health Insurance (inc. medical, dental, and vision) for employee and dependents

Family leave (up to 12 weeks)

A flexible time off policy

Employer-matched 401(k) plan