Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. WestEd conducts and applies research, develops evidence-based solutions, and provides consulting services in education, health, and justice. The Senior Project/Operations Coordinator operationalizes statewide education agency transformation engagements by translating plans and methodologies into schedules, trackers, procedures, and documented workflows. The role also manages delivery planning, quality assurance, invoicing, meeting logistics, stakeholder coordination, and project risks, budgets, and timelines.
Responsibilities
- Work with content and subject-matter leads to translate their methodologies and technical approaches into sequenced work plans with owners, due dates, dependencies, and review gates, surfacing and documenting the operational steps a plan assumes but does not state
- Write and maintain the procedures, checklists, and templates that allow a plan to be executed by staff who did not design it
- Set up and maintain knowledge management for each project, including file architecture, version control, access permissions, and the record of decisions, approvals, and client direction; onboard team members onto the tools and protocols in use
- Translate contract scope of work into detailed schedules, timelines, and task plans, and maintain the supporting planning documents, including charters, work plans, trackers, RAID logs, and dependency maps, as priorities and sequencing shift
- Maintain project tracking that gives the team visibility two to three weeks ahead, flag conflicting deadlines with proposed options, follow up with team members on action items, and keep governance documentation current, including RACI charts, sponsorship maps, and decision logs
- Estimate staff and resource needs to inform planning, support budget development and reforecasting for renewals, and maintain the risk and issue register, raising emerging schedule, budget, scope, and quality risks with recommended options and tracking mitigation to closure
- Track all contract deliverables against due dates and contract requirements, maintaining a single source of truth for deliverable status across engagements
- Coordinate quality assurance before deliverables go to the client, including proofreading, brand compliance, accessibility review, and formatting, routing work to the appropriate reviewers, holding the QA schedule, and elevating substantive feedback to the responsible content lead
- Prepare and submit invoices for completed deliverables, tracking the acceptance conditions that trigger each invoice, and monitor spending and level of effort against task-level and total not-to-exceed amounts, flagging variances to project leadership
- Coordinate end-to-end logistics for in-person client meetings, workshops, retreats, council and advisory body meetings, and multi-day working sessions, including venue and room setup, audiovisual needs, catering, travel, registration and attendance, and dietary and accessibility accommodations
- Draft and maintain facilitator agendas and run-of-show documents in partnership with content leads, assemble and quality-check participant materials, send pre-event and post-event participant communications, and capture decisions and next steps
- Draft agendas for and facilitate standing internal team meetings, capture notes and action items, prepare recurring status updates, manage the project team calendar, and coordinate materials production and printing
- Serve as a scheduling, logistics, and status point of contact for client counterparts and coordinate dependencies with technology vendors, state IT departments, and delivery partners, consulting the Project Director on anything that changes scope, budget, or timeline
Skills
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience, with familiarity navigating public-sector timelines
- Experience coordinating or managing multi-workstream projects or contracts where the project plan changed materially after kickoff, ideally in public sector, education, or professional services consulting
- Experience working alongside subject-matter experts and translating their approach into an operational plan the wider team could execute
- Hands-on experience running logistics for in-person professional convenings, workshops, retreats, or multi-day meetings
- Ability to translate a contract scope of work into a detailed schedule with dependencies, owners, and milestones, and to adjust it as priorities shift
- Ability to design a durable project structure, such as a template, workflow, or reporting format, and to document a process clearly enough that someone who was not in the room can follow it
- Budget tracking, invoicing, and cost monitoring against task-level and total not-to-exceed contract amounts
- Deliverable quality control, including proofreading, brand compliance, and working knowledge of digital accessibility standards, plus strong spreadsheet skills in Google Workspace and Microsoft Office
- Organizer by instinct, creating structure and keeping information current
- Service orientation toward internal teammates and content experts, with the patience to draw out what they intend and the judgment to structure it without taking over the substance
- Adaptable under changing plans, treating resequencing as routine, and proactive in surfacing risk before it becomes client-facing, escalating with a recommendation rather than an open question
- Meticulous attention to detail in documents, schedules, budgets, and logistics, while holding multiple concurrent engagements at different phases
- Will require multi-day in-person travel to Oregon several times per year
- Successful candidates must be authorized to work in the United States
- Proficiency in Asana (preferred), Smartsheet, or a comparable project management platform such as Monday.com, MS Project, Airtable, or Jira, with the ability to build trackers, dashboards, and templates rather than only update existing ones
- Direct prior experience with Asana and/or Smartsheet specifically
- CAPM, PMP, or comparable project management certification, which is useful to demonstrate knowledge but not a substitute for the experience above
- Experience supporting a governing board, council, commission, or other public advisory body, or prior work in state agencies, regional service agencies, large districts, or national TA centers
- West Coast, Pacific Northwest, or Mountain West preferred
Benefits
- 15% contribution toward retirement effective day 1 of employment and immediately 100% vested
- Pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Account option
- PTO: 19 days (increases to 21 days beginning the third year of employment)
- 12 paid holidays
- Life Insurance: value of 3x gross salary, max of 500k
- Opportunities for annual merit-based performance increases
- Annual incentives
- Professional development opportunities & mentorship program
Company Overview