Senior Manager, Strategy & Operations - Aligned Labs

About Us

At Aligned, we've built an expert-powered data and evaluation platform to support research at leading AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta. We have grown a community of tens of thousands of carefully vetted experts with advanced degrees and senior-level experience across industry, government, and academia. Our experts support major AI initiatives by providing subject-matter expertise, evaluating the performance of unreleased models, and designing complex real-world problems that push the limits of current AI systems.

We are a remote-first company, led by a Google Gemini veteran CEO and seasoned founders. Unlike most early stage companies, we are committed to maintaining a small, high-impact team of exceptional people and focusing on sustainable, profitable growth.

The Role

As one of our earliest team members, you’ll own and personally manage our largest projects with our most important AI clients. You’ll define project goals, manage and support top-tier experts, ensure deliverables exceed client expectations, and keep stakeholders informed at every step.

What You’ll Do

Project Ownership

• Own large-scale client engagements from kickoff through final delivery, defining scope, timelines, and success metrics
• Serve as the primary client contact for daily updates, strategic reviews, and issue resolution

Expert Operations

• Define expert profiles and sourcing requirements for each project
• Design onboarding processes and ongoing training to ensure consistent quality
• Confidently evaluate credentials and provide feedback to leading experts across academia, industry, and government

Quality Control

• Audit expert deliverables and implement improvements to drive better outcomes
• Accurately track and report on key performance metrics

Strategic Impact

• Partner closely with our CEO and COO to continuously improve the strategy for our AI client relationships, client projects, and expert operations.

Why This Role Is Exciting

You'll lead large teams of talented scientists, professors, engineers, and business professionals working on frontier AI projects at some of the world's leading AI companies. Through these projects, you'll gain exposure to a wide range of advanced fields and a firsthand view into how leading AI systems are being evaluated and improved.

As an early hire, you'll have significant influence on how we build and scale our operations, with the opportunity to eventually lead parts of the business. You'll have a high degree of autonomy, supported by experienced founders. And the systems and processes you build will create opportunities for thousands of experts while helping improve AI systems across some of the world's most important fields.

What We're Looking For

The ideal candidate started their career in a quantitative field (Math, Science, Engineering, Economics, Finance) and has since developed both sides of a rare skill set: operational ownership of complex programs (Chief of Staff, VP/Director of Ops, Product/Program Director, or similar) and senior client-facing experience. These can come from a single role or accumulated across multiple roles.

More concretely:

• Relevant Experience. You have 5+ years in senior chief of staff, consulting, operations, product, or program management roles, with direct ownership of client or executive-stakeholder relationships.
• Research Background. You have a strong background (ideally PhD-level) in Math, Science, Engineering, Finance, or Economics.
• World-Class Client Service. You become the preferred partner for every client you work with. You have high integrity, go above and beyond, communicate exceptionally, and make every client's job easier than before they met you.
• Management Skills. You have experience managing or supervising senior professionals.
• Agency. You figure out what needs to be done without explicit instruction, while knowing when to ask for help.
• Data Driven. You're experienced at generating reports, identifying trends, packaging data for clients, and using data-driven insights to make decisions.
• Technical Fluency. You are highly proficient in Excel or Google Sheets and capable of using AI tools to automate workflows or write simple scripts when needed.
• Remote Operator. You have excellent written and verbal communication skills and experience working remotely with a high degree of autonomy.

Compensation & Benefits

• $150k per year base salary
• Employee profit sharing. We're cash-flow positive with strong revenue, so this is a real economic stake.
• Healthcare benefits
• Fully remote work with flexible hours
• Significant growth opportunity and influence as an early team member
• Mentorship from experienced founders
• Direct exposure to cutting-edge AI companies and research
• Opportunity to work with talented experts across a wide variety of domains