Research Operations Manager
About Episteme
Episteme is a new kind of R&D company built for people who want their work to matter in the world. We support exceptional researchers pursuing ambitious, translational science.
What We Look For
The Research Operations Lead at Episteme owns and evolves the operational systems that allow multiple research programs to move with clarity, momentum, and accountability, even as complexity increases. You are accountable for ensuring that execution remains stable under pressure, scales across teams without fragmentation, and does not depend on informal heroics or constant coordination overhead.
What You Will Do
Operational Execution: Own and continuously evolve the operational rhythm across multiple efforts, ensuring work moves forward with clarity, coordination, and follow-through across teams. Establish and refine meeting cadence and decision hygiene across teams.
Research Programs Coordination: Partner closely with researchers and program leads across multiple efforts to ensure operations support scientific progress without friction or duplication. Reduce cognitive load at scale by making coordination predictable, visible, and structurally sound.
Manage Risk and Bottlenecks: Maintain a systemic view of execution health, identifying not only local issues but patterns of failure across teams. Identify bottlenecks, coordination breakdowns, and recurring failure modes. Clarify decision ownership in ambiguous or shared contexts. Escalate when needed, with clear framing of trade-offs and impact. Distinguish local variability from systemic risk. Address root causes rather than repeatedly solving symptoms.
Strengthen How Work Gets Done: Design and evolve operational systems that scale with the organization. Reduce hidden system flaws, standardize where helpful, and preserve flexibility where necessary. Design coordination architectures that hold as demand increases. Clarify and standardize handoffs across teams where needed. Simplify workflows and eliminate unnecessary operational noise. Strengthen documentation, visibility, and shared context across programs. Introduce planning structures that improve sequencing without adding bureaucracy. Build systems that reduce reliance on individual heroics.
What Success Looks Like
Execution across multiple programs feels coherent, predictable, and resilient. Work moves forward without constant coordination overhead. Dependencies are understood and managed before they become blockers. Teams are aligned without needing excessive synchronization.
Budgets, purchasing, documentation, and resource allocation scale without creating confusion or duplication. Operational systems hold under pressure and growth. Failure modes are identified early and addressed at the root.
Researchers are able to focus their energy on scientific reasoning, not coordination complexity. If this role were removed, execution would fragment across teams, coordination costs would rise, and hidden risks would begin to accumulate.
Qualifications
You bring meaningful experience in operations, technical program management, or a similar role within a scientific or R&D environment. Typically, this includes 8+ years of experience supporting complex, multi-program, multi-stakeholder environments where coordination, sequencing, and execution quality are critical.
You have operated across interconnected systems where decisions in one area materially affect others. You have demonstrated ownership of operational systems that multiple teams depend on, including evolving those systems to scale.
You have experience improving execution not only within a program, but across programs or teams. You are comfortable balancing competing priorities and making trade-offs under ambiguity and pressure.
You are proficient with project management and collaboration tools, and use them to create clarity and alignment across teams, not just local visibility.
A Bachelor's degree is required; a scientific or technical background is strongly preferred. A Project Management certification is also preferred.
What We Offer
Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO), plus 12 company holidays
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
100% company-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, basic life insurance, and AD&D insurance
16 weeks of fully paid parental leave
Relocation assistance for qualifying relocations