Associate Operations

About ARI

Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization advocating for artificial intelligence policy in the public interest. We believe in establishing a thoughtful governance framework for rapidly advancing AI technology that protects the public from harm while continuing to foster innovation. ARI takes a bipartisan approach, building coalitions across the political spectrum.

ARI has an affiliated organization, the Center for Responsible Innovation (CRI), a 501(c)(3), focused on promoting responsible innovation through conducting AI policy research and providing nonpartisan educational programming.

The Operations Department owns the infrastructure that ARI is built on: finance, risk & compliance, IT, people operations, administration, workplace, and strategic planning.

Over the past two years, the department has grown ARI from a handful of staff to 35+ today (with more growth to come) while building the systems from scratch to keep pace. The Operations Department works in a high-trust environment, with broad responsibilities and room to grow into more self-directed work designing forward-looking systems meant to scale in a rapidly growing organization.

The Operations Department is hiring two associates to start this fall. This posting is for the Associate, People & Operations. The companion role, the Associate, Office & Operations, focuses on workplace, IT, and finance support, and its posting is available here.

Reporting to the Associate Director of People Operations, the Associate, People & Operations supports the employee lifecycle at ARI and organizational compliance for ARI and CRI. This is a hands‑on, people-facing, systems-heavy role for someone who wants to build a career in people operations and learn how the function works from the inside. As the organization grows, the role will grow with it, with the opportunity to take on greater ownership over time.

Key responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Serve as the first point of contact for employee questions on PTO, benefits, payroll, and policies, and route employee relations matters to the Associate Director.
• Coordinate hiring in Greenhouse, from posting through reference checks, and own candidate communications.
• Run onboarding and offboarding end‑to‑end for employees, interns, and contractors, from I‑9 and benefits enrollment through final pay and records retention.
• Prepare employment documentation from approved templates, including offer letters and verification letters.
• Support payroll in Rippling, including cycle changes, stipends, and timekeeping for nonexempt employees.
• Administer benefits and leave day‑to‑day, and maintain data integrity in Rippling and Employee Navigator. Escalate leave requests involving accommodations or medical documentation to the Associate Director.
• Analyze and maintain the people data that ARI runs on, such as headcount, attrition, and hiring metrics.
• Support the logistics of people processes and systems, as well as other change management initiatives led by Operations.
• Support the development and implementation of new policies, processes, and systems.

• Own compliance tracking to ensure that ARI and CRI file required documents on time.
• Prepare state registrations and ongoing filings for review wherever ARI has employees, including payroll tax, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.
• Support annual corporate filings, charitable registrations, registered‑agent renewals, and insurance renewals, including document collection and application preparation.
• Support benefits compliance, including timely COBRA notices.
• Conduct I‑9 audits, maintain required postings, track…