External Operations Manager Jobs in San Rafael, CA

We're looking for an experienced Operations Manager to build and own core operational functions as we grow. Reporting to the VP of Operations and working alongside our operations team, you'll take end-to-end ownership of people operations, recruiting operations, external partner management, and company-wide knowledge management. This is a role for someone who has seen what good operations look like at a scaling startup and wants to build those systems from the ground up at a lab whose research ships in frontier models.

Key Responsibilities:

People Ops & Employee Experience

• Own the end-to-end onboarding process.
• Design and roll out foundational people policies, and benefits programs. 
• Champion employee experience so that team members feel supported, informed, and set up to do their best work.

Recruiting Ops

• Drive recruiting operations end to end.
• Partner with the COO and research leads on pipeline strategy, including expanding sourcing through conferences, events, and external partners.
• Coordinate immigration processes for candidates and new hires in partnership with external counsel.

Legal, Compliance & External Partners

• Own relationships with external legal counsel across benefits, tax, compliance, and immigration.
• Ensure the company remains compliant with state regulations and supports broader risk management.
• Serve as the primary point of contact with our external accountant, connecting them with the information they need from the ops and research teams.

Knowledge Management & Process Documentation

• Own company-wide knowledge management.
• Partner with research and infrastructure leads to give technical runbooks and QA documentation clear homes and owners.
• Build durable, documented processes for recurring operational work.

Office & Team Support

• Manage the office and support the team's day-to-day needs as we grow into a new space.

We’re excited to talk to candidates who bring:

• 1-5 years of experience in operations, people operations, or business operations, including time at an early-stage or high-growth startup.
• Track record of building processes and policies from scratch and driving them to adoption.
• Experience managing external partners such as legal counsel, accountants, or benefits providers.
• Sufficient technical fluency to work credibly with researchers and engineers.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• High empathy and strong interpersonal instincts.
• Discretion and sound judgment with sensitive people and company information.
• Decisive with a bias toward action; comfortable with ambiguity and fast-changing priorities.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred.
• Ability to work full-time in San Francisco, CA.

Bonus points if you have:

• Experience at a research organization or AI lab, or supporting technical or research teams operationally.
• Familiarity with HR compliance, benefits administration (including 401(k) setup), contractor onboarding, or equity administration.
• Experience coordinating immigration processes for hiring.
• Experience implementing knowledge management or documentation systems.
• Interest in AI safety or alignment or machine learning research.
• Entrepreneurial background; ex-founders and ex-consultants encouraged to apply.

Why Join:

• Own the operational backbone of a lab whose research ships in frontier models.
• Work directly with the COO and VP of Operations with high autonomy and ownership.
• Build the systems and processes the company will run on for years.
• Competitive compensation: $120,000 - $170,000 base + bonus + benefits + equity

How to Apply:

Send your resume to careers@dmodel.ai with the subject line “Operations Manager.” We don’t require a cover letter, but please share a bit about why you’re interested in d_model, as well as a link to a personal website, if applicable. Our Operations team will contact you via email if there is a potential fit. 

About d_model

d_model is a fundamental AI research lab partnering with frontier labs to turn their models into capable interpretability and alignment researchers. Alongside our partnerships, we aim to use the agents we build for independent research.

Alignment is an unsolved problem with enormous stakes. We think that interpretability is key to making models safer and more steerable. We build RL environments for open-ended interpretability tasks. These environments teach agents how to do cutting-edge research, not how to reward-hack.

d_model is based in San Francisco and works in-person from our SOMA office. We’re backed by leading venture capital firms and our leadership team hails from OpenAI, AMD, Google, Stanford, Redwood Research, and the University of Washington.