Job Description - Pioneer Labs - Operations Associate

About Pioneer Labs

Pioneer Labs is a startup engineering life for Mars. We are building the first microbes that can turn Martian dirt, water, and air into the building materials needed to sustain life in the low-resource environment of the red planet. Along the way, we use data-driven biological engineering to study the fundamental science of extremophiles and uncover how their remarkable abilities are encoded in DNA. Our goal is to advance the science that enables a green human civilization—on Earth and beyond.

We are a nonprofit research startup based in Emeryville, California. We do moonshot marsshot science with an agile, 12-person team. Pioneer is funded by grants from the Astera Institute’s residency program, The Align Foundation, and other science funders. See pioneer-labs.org to learn more, or visit pioneerlabs.substack.com to read more about our science.

Operations Associate

Pioneer Labs is seeking a full-time, in-person Operations Associate to join our team in Emeryville, California. This role is central to keeping our organization running smoothly and supporting a world-class team of scientists tackling ambitious goals. You’ll handle the systems, logistics, and coordination that make day-to-day work possible—whether it’s managing onboarding, planning events, or keeping finances and compliance organized. You’ll work closely with our external operations consultants (finance, HR, legal) and our Lab Manager, who oversees technical operations.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment, enjoys solving a wide range of problems, and takes pride in building strong, efficient operations behind the scenes.

Key Responsibilities

• Core Operations: Manage onboarding/offboarding, IT and software accounts, credit cards, and office assets. Coordinate support from external HR, payroll, and bookkeeping contractors.

• Compliance Coordination: With guidance from senior consultants, manage HR, nonprofit, and business compliance—ensuring required training, handbooks, filings, and registrations are current. Coordinate with tax and audit consultants yearly.

• Events & Culture: Organize internal gatherings, including team events, retreats, and seminars that strengthen the team and our relationships with collaborators.

• External Event Planning: Lead planning and execution of Pioneer-hosted scientific events—such as annual 30+ person workshops—that create venues for scientific discussion and community engagement. Manage logistics, communications, and day-of coordination.

• Communications and Branding: Maintain website and newsletter updates, coordinate open-science publishing logistics (typesetting, DOI generation), and oversee creation of visual assets and swag that reflect Pioneer’s identity.

Key Experience and Competencies

• Operations Experience: 1–3+ years of experience in operations, administration, or similar “get-things-done” roles (startups a plus).

• High agency and ownership: Strong problem-solving skills with a bias to action. Collaborative and low-ego: willing to own the big and the small. Proactive and organized. Excited to learn new things.

• People-Centered: Experience with organizing both internal and external events. A genuine “people person” who enjoys connecting with others, building relationships, and fostering community. A good communicator and listener.

• Compliance and Finance (preferred, but not essential): Familiar with HR compliance, contracts, and financial coordination in a startup or nonprofit environment.

About Pioneer

Things to know about us:

• We’re results-focused rather than process-focused. We work on problems with genuine basic science unknowns, and as a result, it’s important for us to iterate quickly and be good at creative problem-solving.

• We’re a small, tight-knit, multidisciplinary team. To achieve our goals, experts in everything under the sun — microbiology, space missions, operations, and more — need to work together effectively. Diversity of thought and skill accelerates science, so we aim to hire people with a wide range of expertise, identities, technical backgrounds, and experiences. People thrive on the team when they are good at written and verbal communication, are excited to learn new things from others, and enjoy working on projects that are bigger than any individual.

• We do no-bullshit science. We’ve very lucky to get to work on science that is extremely cool! And yet, no amount of hype will save a flight test if the science or engineering doesn’t check out. We aim to make things that actually work. That requires constant, level-headed assessment of our own results, genuine curiosity, and a healthy mix of ambition and humility.

Salary and benefits

Pioneer Labs takes a market-based approach to compensation. We benchmark salaries based on equivalents in for-profit biotech startups. The salary for this role will likely be $100k-$140k/year. The candidate's starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, and interview performance.

In addition, we offer benefits including:

• Health Insurance (inc. medical, dental, and vision) for employee and dependents

• Family leave (up to 12 weeks)

• A flexible time off policy

• Employer-matched 401(k) plan