EA - Doing Ops in EA FAQ: before you join (2022) by Vaidehi Agarwalla

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Doing Ops in EA FAQ: before you join (2022), published by Vaidehi Agarwalla on November 8, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Last edited: November 7th 2022This guide was written by the Pineapple Operations team with inputs from several operations staff at various organizations to provide an overview of considerations for entering operations work at EA orgs. We think it'll be especially useful for people new to EA and/or operations who are considering working in this space. We think it could also be valuable for people looking to hire for these roles to understand the perspectives of candidates but it has less directly relevant advice (we may write up something in the future).We've chosen to publish this now because it seems like it could be useful to many people. We may make updates in the future and will keep a change log in the appendix.1. What is operations in EA?TL;DR it’s come to mean “everything that supports the core work and allows other people to focus on the core work” (this is not normally what operations means outside of EA, administration may be a more appropriate term).Operations in EA is a very broad area that can mean a lot of different things. This guide focuses on most operations roles (excluding PA/ExA roles and operations leadership roles). There are a few roles that we’ve seen open positions for in the last year (2022). Note that many roles will include several items from this list:Operations Manager (most often at small / new organisations)Implementing and maintaining general systems & processesManaging Accounting, Payroll & LegalFundraisingMarketing & CommunicationsPA tasks for the teamOther ad-hoc projectsOffice & Community ManagerPeople Ops/HRRecruiting CoordinatorSpecial Projects Associate / Project Manager (usually helping incubate new projects or do project management)Events Associate (events planning & execution)Logistics/Supply ChainSome roles will also have operations staff doing direct generalist work - such as research or program development - as needed, and generalist roles at smaller orgs will also involve operations work. Generalists can do many different things, well outside the ops domain - could be research, sales, and even having inputs on strategy. Generalist work that involves research will be often very different in nature to operations where task switching is common, or external facing work vs back-office admin tasks which don’t require much human contact. If you are hired as an operations person, keep in mind that this will likely be your top priority - it’s literally what keeps the lights on.Read the job description for each role carefully before applying - roles with the same title might have very different responsibilities, and be clear about what proportion of your time could actually be spent on generalist work if that’s mentioned in the JD (and that orgs may not be able to always predict this ahead of time)."In my current EA role, which is generalist but more explicitly ops-focused, my responsibilities have included ops, communications, and research, and shift based on my comparative advantage relative to the rest of the team. In this type of role it’s important to have a clear sense of priorities and boundaries, because your work could easily encompass. everything. It’s also important to learn to communicate clearly across functions and outside of your org, and to be flexible and excited about learning new things!"Emily Thai, Operations Manager @ Giving GreenOperations is often recommended as a good fit for community builders or people with experience organising local groups. There is typically a fair amount of overlap between the two roles - community building can involve many tasks that often fall under ops in EA e.g. events, implementing systems & processes, managing people/community me...