Position: Data & Technology Project Manager

Salary: The salary range for this position is $90,000 to $120,000 annually. Our salaries are competitive with peer organizations like private foundations, academic institutions/think tanks, and the World Bank, and are benchmarked for the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where GiveWell is based. We adjust the salaries of remote employees based on the federal geographic location adjustment database.

Location: New York City or Oakland, California are preferred. Full-time remote work is possible. As a general rule, requests to work remotely will usually be allowed for locations that are within three hours of the Pacific Time Zone. Exceptions to the time zone rule may be made in rare circumstances.

Flexibility: We support and encourage flexible working, including flexible hours, regular work-from-home days, part-time work patterns, and periodic remote-work stints. The majority of our staff, including senior management, work flexibly in one way or another.

Visas: Please note that for this position, we're currently not accepting applications from candidates who need authorization to work in the U.S.

Timeline: We're reviewing applications on a rolling basis.

About GiveWell

GiveWell is motivated by the simple question: how can we do as much good as possible?

In our efforts to answer this question, our researchers search for and recommend outstanding philanthropic giving opportunities. We focus on global health and poverty alleviation programs in the lowest-income parts of the world because that is where we've found we can have the greatest impact, according to our criteria.

Our primary impact is directing funding to our recommended charities. We rigorously vet and recommend a short list of top charities that meet our criteria of being evidence-backed, cost-effective, transparent, and in need of more funding. Our nine current top charities work on death-averting and life-improving programs.

We continuously review our giving recommendations, and this analysis is available, for free, on our website. Based on our recommendations, donors have given more than $800 million to our recommended programs since our founding in 2007. In 2020 alone, GiveWell donors contributed more than $170 million to our recommendations, which we estimate will avert between 29,000 and 48,000 deaths and provide parasitic worm treatments for over 12 million children.

We also direct funding to other promising opportunities, such as projects whose impact is less directly measurable but might be even greater than that of our recommended charities.

We are expanding our team with the goal of scaling up our research and directing more money to high-impact programs. Our Data and Technology Project Managers are integral to the success of our mission to move hundreds of millions of dollars to the best giving opportunities we can find.

About the role

GiveWell is growing quickly, as are the needs of our staff for excellent technical support and infrastructure. We need you to join forces with our existing Data & Technology Project Manager to maintain and improve GiveWell’s current technical systems, find and implement new technical solutions, manage and oversee the work of external contractors, and respond to ad-hoc requests from staff.

You’ll work on projects related to our Salesforce database, donations processing, software integrations, website, and other technical systems that support and optimize our operations, help us scale, and improve our staff and donor experiences. Projects will be split between you and our existing Data & Technology Project Manager. We’re still a small team, so you can expect to own your projects and influence the direction of our tech team and infrastructure as we grow. You’ll split your time between large projects and day-to-day tasks.

Responsibilities:

• Maintain and improve GiveWell’s Salesforce database/CRM. You’ll work with existing staff to make ongoing improvements and keep our database running to meet new and existing operational needs.
  • This includes work related to system administration, user support, database customization, reporting/dashboarding, data quality monitoring, bulk database manipulation, CRM automations, light Apex development, troubleshooting, and installing/configuring third party applications.
• Sustain GiveWell’s technical backend across a suite of different tools. We use a variety of tools other than Salesforce to run our organization. You’ll take on a set of responsibilities across these tools.
  • We expect this will be fluid as the organization grows and we add and remove specific sets of software. You’ll generally split work between database/CRM administration (i.e., Salesforce); maintenance of our Drupal website, Wordpress blog, and email marketing system; occasional light frontend web development (basic HTML and CSS); and management of integrations that link our payments processing tools with Salesforce.
• Identify and implement new technical solutions to address problems. You’ll find and implement the right technical tools to solve new problems or improve current systems.
• Pull data to answer questions. You’ll help colleagues answer questions using data from Salesforce or GiveWell’s other data sources.
• Manage engagements with external contractors. You'll help manage engagements with existing external experts and oversee projects with new contractors as needed.

About you

Ideally, you have all of the following characteristics. However, many excellent candidates will have only some of the characteristics below. We encourage you to apply if you would use the majority of these characteristics to describe yourself:

• 5+ years of experience working in IT, including 2+ years administering a Salesforce database. You have work experience or certification equivalent to or greater than a Salesforce Certified Administrator. We have a preference for candidates with specific experience related to:
  • Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)
  • Data hygiene
  • Reporting and dashboarding
  • Custom applications
  • Object customization
  • Workflows, processes, and triggers
  • AppExchange
  • Improving usability for end users
  • Data security and access
  • Both Classic and Lightning Salesforce platforms
• Experience managing a broad set of technical tools. You have demonstrated ability to learn and integrate new technologies and applications, and are comfortable learning and working with a wide range of tools.
• Experience meeting the needs of non-technical staff. You can work with non-technical staff to diagnose and help solve their problems related to our tech stack.
• Strong attention to detail. Your completed projects account for the fine points, leave few or no loose threads, and minimize cleanup work.
• Ability to manage projects, be organized, and set clear priorities.
• Basic experience working on the backend of a website with CMS. You’ve worked on a CMS-based website before and have basic fluency in HTML and CSS.

Other desirable skills, experience, or characteristics:

• Setting up and reporting with Google Analytics
• Configuring and troubleshooting cookies, especially using Google Tag Manager
• Reporting and analytics tools beyond Salesforce
• Website administration on a Drupal website
• Exploratory data analysis using SQL/SOQL and R (preferably Tidyverse) or Python
• Basic Apex programming
• Javascript
• Experience implementing data privacy and information security best practices
• Fluency with Excel and/or Google Sheets

Confidence can sometimes hold us back from applying for a job. Here’s a secret: there's no such thing as a "perfect" candidate. GiveWell is looking for exceptional people who want to make a positive impact through their work and help create an organization where everyone can thrive. So whatever background you bring with you, please apply if this role would make you excited to come to work every day.

To apply

Apply here: https://www.givewell.org/about/jobs/data-technology-project-manager-application. We only accept applications through our website. You may also send additional material, such as a letter of recommendation, to support your application; this is not required. Please send those materials to jobs@givewell.org.

We plan to respond to all submissions. Please contact jobs@givewell.org with any questions.

If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at jobs@givewell.org.

As part of our dedication to the diversity of our staff, GiveWell is committed to the principles of Equal Employment Opportunity and to making employment decisions based on merit and value. We are committed to complying with all federal, state, and local laws providing Equal Employment Opportunities, as well as all laws related to terms and conditions of employment. We desire to maintain a work environment free of harassment or discrimination due to sex, race, religion, color, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, citizenship, physical or mental disability, marital status, familial status, ethnicity, ancestry, status as a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, age, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local laws.

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.