Project Manager (Youth AI Safety Institute)

Project Manager (Youth AI Safety Institute)

Common Sense Media is the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the research\-backed information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the age of apps, algorithms, and AI. We rate, educate, and advocate for policies to protect and prepare kids online. Our ratings, research, and resources reach more than 150 million users globally, over 1\.4 million educators, and more than 100,000 schools worldwide every year. Learn more at commonsense.org.

The Opportunity

Launched in May 2026, the Youth AI Safety Institute is Common Sense Media's newest addition to its programmatic pillar. The Institute establishes safety standards, builds open\-source evaluations that AI developers can run against their models, independently tests AI products, and publishes the results to provide transparency and accountability. It is an independent research and testing ground dedicated to ensuring that the AI used by children is safe and developmentally appropriate.

The Project Manager will own the end\-to\-end process by which the Institute's work—risk assessments, standards, briefs, and other outputs—gets published, distributed, and made accessible to the audiences that matter. This is a deeply cross\-functional role that sits at the intersection of content strategy, site operations, and internal coordination, working across the Institute team and with Common Sense Media's Communications, Marketing, Product, and Editorial teams to ensure that what the Institute produces reaches the right people in the right form.

This is a role with meaningful room to grow as the Institute's publishing volume and infrastructure scales. The ideal candidate is organized, detail\-oriented, and comfortable operating across both the operational and strategic dimensions of content publishing, from managing image specs and CMS workflows to thinking about how different audiences engage with Institute content.

Location: San Francisco, California

Reports To: Head of AI \& Digital Assessments

Salary: $66,000–$82,000

Type: Full\-time, exempt

What You'll Do

Publishing Operations \& Site Management

• Own the backend publishing workflow for all Institute output, including risk assessments, standards documentation, research briefs, and related materials.
• Manage CMS operations for Institute content: uploading, formatting, QAing, and maintaining published pages to ensure accuracy, consistency, and accessibility.
• In collaboration with Common Sense Media's Brand and Marketing teams, develop and maintain publishing standards and process documentation, including image specs, formatting guidelines, versioning protocols, and QA checklists, so that publishing is consistent and reproducible across all output types.
• Coordinate with Common Sense Media's Product team to identify, specify, and implement site features needed to support Institute publishing requirements (e.g., standards display formats, risk assessment archives, versioning infrastructure).
• Manage the Institute's content archive, including version control for standards and assessments, so that published materials are traceable and up to date.

Cross\-Functional Coordination

• Serve as the Institute's primary operational coordinator for publishing\-related workflows, working across internal teams including Communications, Marketing, Product, and the Families and Education editorial teams.
• Coordinate the write\-up and publication process across Institute staff, ensuring that drafts move through review, editing, and approval stages on schedule.
• Liaise with Common Sense Media's Families and Education teams to facilitate translation of Institute outputs for family\- and educator\-facing audiences, ensuring the handoff is smooth, well documented, and timely.
• Coordinate with the Communications and Marketing teams to prep Institute content for distribution across channels, including newsletters, social media, and partner share\-outs.

Content Strategy \& Audience Distribution

• Think strategically about how Institute outputs are presented and accessed across different audience segments (including researchers, policymakers, industry, and institutional stakeholders) and surface recommendations for how content structure, format, and distribution can better serve those audiences.
• Support the development and maintenance of standards content on the Institute's website, including thinking through how standards are formatted, navigated, and updated for public audiences.
• Prepare and package Institute content for share\-out, including drafting materials for institutional audiences (newsletters, briefing summaries, release communications) in coordination with the Head of AI \& Digital Assessments.
• Track how audiences engage with published Institute content and bring those insights back to inform future publishing and distribution decisions.

Process Documentation \& Standardization

• Document and maintain clear process guides for all publishing and distribution workflows so that operations are consistent, transferable, and scalable.
• Identify inefficiencies or gaps in existing workflows and propose improvements in coordination with internal stakeholders.
• Maintain organized records of all published outputs, versions, and distribution activity.

What We're Looking For

Required Qualifications

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• Education: Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (communications, journalism, public policy, digital media, or related).
• Experience: 2–3 years of experience in content operations, digital publishing, communications coordination, or a related role.
• CMS proficiency: Hands\-on experience working in a content management system, with comfort managing formatting, publishing workflows, and page QA.
• Cross\-functional coordination: Demonstrated ability to coordinate across multiple internal teams and stakeholders to move projects forward on deadline.
• Organizational excellence: Strong attention to detail and process orientation, with a track record of building and maintaining systems that keep complex workflows running smoothly.
• Communication: Clear written communication skills, with the ability to draft institutional audience\-facing content and document processes precisely.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with product or engineering teams to specify and implement content or site features.
• Familiarity with content strategy, audience segmentation, or digital distribution in a research, policy, or nonprofit context.
• Experience managing content archives, version control, or publishing standards documentation.
• Comfort working across communications, marketing, and editorial functions in a matrixed organization.
• Interest in AI safety, technology policy, or child and youth safety.

Core Competencies

• Operational excellence: Builds systems, follows process, and keeps complex publishing workflows running reliably across a high volume of outputs.
• Cross\-functional fluency: Works comfortably across teams with different priorities and vocabularies—Product, Communications, Marketing, Editorial—without losing track of Institute needs.
• Strategic orientation: Understands the purpose behind the operations; thinks about how content reaches audiences, not just whether it gets published.
• Detail orientation: Catches errors, maintains consistency, and upholds publishing standards across all Institute outputs.
• Proactive communication: Keeps stakeholders informed, flags blockers early, and follows through without being asked.
• Growth mindset: Eager to take on increasing responsibility as the Institute's publishing infrastructure and output volume grows.

What We Offer

• The chance to work with talented, passionate professionals.
• A great health and welfare benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, a matching 401(k), and other key benefits.
• An organization that offers work/life balance.
• The opportunity to really make a difference in the lives of kids and families!

*Common Sense Media provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified individuals and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other protected classification or characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.*

*Common Sense Media will also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. However, job offers are made on the condition that the applicant subsequently passes a criminal background check. If the background check indicates a prior criminal conviction, we will conduct an individualized assessment to determine whether the conviction should result in denial of employment. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.*