Research Operations Specialist

Work on Climate (WoCl) is a leading non-profit focused on mobilizing humanity’s talent to build a regenerative, climate-positive economy.

You probably know us for our online community – the world’s largest climate career and action community which has helped thousands of people find climate jobs, start companies, and build impactful networks. We’ve been featured in Fast Company, the New York Times, Wired, and more.

Our work is entering a new chapter beyond helping individuals find climate jobs.

We’re now supporting professionals to engage in climate leadership – organizing, mobilizing, and transforming whole sectors and regions toward regenerative futures using the skills they have invested in throughout their careers. (Read more about this transition in our latest learning blog!).

About the team

The Impact Research team studies the impact of Work on Climate’s community through data on the usage of our programs. We gather data from mixed-methods research, including surveying, interviews, case studies, and usage metrics. Our team’s findings guide program design and prove impact to our allies and funders.

Our research helps support data-driven deliverables for our Work on Climate leadership team, including:

• Funding Narratives: stories of how change actually happens through our members’ and chapters’ climate leadership
• Leadership Readiness Frameworks: which members or chapters are ready for climate leadership
• Leader Transition Maps: key moments, blockers, and interventions in climate leadership
• Chapter Design Principles: how to structure chapters for real-world feasibility

Role summary

This is a new role that opened because our research needs are growing faster than our operational backbone. Right now, researchers are spending time on recruiting, tooling, and process work that pulls them away from the actual research. We need someone to own that layer so the team can focus on doing research.

The top priorities for this term:

• Build a real participant recruitment and panel management system, outreach templates, best practices, tracking who we’re reaching, and closing known gaps
• Create library of reusable templates so the team isn’t rebuilding process from scratch every project

Time commitment

This role is highly impactful and rewarding, but we want to be upfront that our most successful volunteers dedicate:

• 5 hours/week consistently for the next 6+ months
• Regular availability for team meetings, including the team weekly meeting on Mondays at 11:30am Pacific Time

Why volunteer with Work on Climate?

Our most impactful volunteers are internally motivated, and contribute to this work because they believe in our mission and see how their work makes a difference. However, if you are choosing between several impactful opportunities, consider that you’ll get to:

• Build and own a research operations system from close to scratch, not just maintain someone else’s
• See your work plug directly into a live, high-stakes study feeding into WoCl’s leadership and funder strategy
• Build a concrete, resume-worthy track record of operational impact
• Work closely with a small, global, tight-knit group of researchers
• Learn the operational side of research (recruiting, tooling, repository design) in a real, evolving environment rather than a textbook one

What will I do?

You’ll be the person who greases the wheels and makes sure the research machine has what it needs to run – the right participants, the right tools, the right templates, so researchers can spend their time on research. This looks like:

• Designing and executing participant recruitment strategy: new channels, tracking panel composition against project needs, flagging where we need to oversample
• Building and maintaining a research repository and reusable templates so process doesn’t live only in people’s heads
• Supporting researchers day-to-day: troubleshooting tools, unblocking recruiting challenges, jumping in when something breaks.
• Tracking team capacity and flagging risk early – our team runs lean, and knowing where the gaps are matters
• Coordinating projects day-to-day (tracking timelines, following up on open items, making sure work doesn’t stall between meetings).

What skills and commitment do I need?

The most effective candidates will have:

• Experience in a research operations or research coordination role, ideally supporting a research or UX team
• Hands-on experience with participant recruitment or panel management
• Comfort with tools like Asana, Notion, Google suite, or genuine eagerness to pick them up fast
• Strong organizational skills and a track record of building process where none existed
• Excellent written communication, able to work with people across different working styles and time zones
• Fluency in English

The most effective candidates will also be:

• Trustworthy and dependable. We value autonomy, so follow-through matters a lot here. We depend on you to do what you say you’ll do.
• Proactive. You don’t wait for a fully-specified task before starting; you take the first step.
• Comfortable with ambiguity. Some of our process decisions are still being settled by leadership – you’ll sometimes be building for a target that’s still moving.
• Communicative about risk. If something’s blocked, unclear, or you’re going to be out for two weeks, just tell us early.
• Curious and growth-minded, with a genuine interest in how research operations support real research.

Common Challenges

• Our research practice is growing – systems you build need to flex, not lock in around today’s plan.
• The team is currently running thin, so you may occasionally get pulled into unblocking researchers directly, helping recruit, troubleshoot tools, be flexible.
• We work with lightweight tools and creative solutions, so comfort building pragmatic processes is more valuable than relying on expensive platforms.