Executive Assistant, Detection Leadership Team

Starting compensation: $90,000 to $110,000, depending on experience Work location: In-person in Cambridge, MA (strongly preferred) About SecureBio Detection SecureBio is a nonprofit working to protect the world from catastrophic pandemics. As advances in biotechnology lower the barriers to engineering dangerous pathogens, our mission is to make sure humanity’s detection and response systems are ready in time. Our Detection team runs one of the world’s largest metagenomic biosurveillance networks, sequencing wastewater and nasal swab samples daily to catch emerging pathogens before they reach outbreak scale. About the Role We’re hiring an Executive Assistant to support our five-person Detection Leadership Team. Some have heavy external calendars with government partners and funders. Others have quieter weeks that can suddenly become intense when an escalation event takes priority over everything else. Your job is to keep all of it moving, and to know, without being told every time, what matters most right now. This is a shared EA role, and we want to be upfront about what that means. Supporting one executive is about learning one person’s style and building a process together. Supporting five is different. It means making prioritisation calls across competing demands, sometimes without being able to check in first. It means understanding that when an escalation event hits, everything else gets reprioritised, calmly and quickly. And it means building enough context about the mission and the team’s work that your judgement about what matters improves every week. The people you’ll be supporting are technically fluent, mission-driven, and self-sufficient day to day. However, they need someone who removes friction they did not know they had, catches things before they fall through the cracks, and makes the leadership team collectively sharper by being at the centre of how it operates. Several members of the leadership team already use AI tools heavily for administrative work, from email triage to travel planning. We would value someone who is either already comfortable with those tools or curious enough to learn, and who can help spread effective AI usage across the leadership team. How You’ll Spend Your Time You’ll manage the calendars of five leaders, scheduling internal and external meetings, and making the call on conflicts between competing priorities. You’ll plan and book domestic and international travel end to end. You’ll draft and triage communications on behalf of the leaders you support, sometimes to government officials and senior external partners, matching the tone and weight that each situation requires. You’ll manage expense reports, reimbursements, and day-to-day administrative tasks with the kind of tracking and accountability that means nothing gets lost. You’ll notice recurring inefficiencies in how the leadership team operates and propose fixes. You’ll use AI tools and productivity software to keep yourself and the team running efficiently, and over time help colleagues who are less familiar with those tools get comfortable with them. What Kinds of Things We’re Most Interested in You Having 2+ years of experience as an executive assistant or in a comparable administrative role. Demonstrated experience managing complex calendars and coordinating meetings across multiple stakeholders. Experience planning and booking domestic and international travel. Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to match tone to audience, from a quick internal Slack message to a formal email to a government partner. A track record of working independently and following through without close supervision. Strong prioritisation judgement. Proficiency with common workplace tools such as Slack, Google Workspace, and task management software. Discretion and trustworthiness with confidential and sensitive information. Preferred Qualifications Experience supporting multiple executives or a leadership team at once, rather than a single person. Experience in biotech, life sciences, or a similar technical environment. Demonstrated comfort with AI tools or automation for scheduling, communications, or administrative work. Experience managing expenses, reimbursements, or budgets. Experience with event planning and coordination. Logistics and benefits This is a full-time in-person role located in our Cambridge, MA office. Our employee benefits reflect our belief in investing to build the strongest possible team, in which everyone receives the trust and support they need to excel. Our benefits package includes: Flexible work hours; unlimited paid time off (PTO) for all employees; and minimum 12 weeks fully-paid parental leave. 401(k) Employer 401(k) match up to 4% of total salary. Excellent offices Superb working environments in our Kendall Square offices, including high-quality ergonomic office equipment, snacks, and daily catered lunches. Referral bonus We offer a referral bonus of up to $3,000 to individuals who refer successful candidates for this position: If you refer a candidate that we invite to an in-person work trial, you will receive $600; If the candidate accepts a job offer, you will receive a further $2,400, for a total of $3,000. To receive these bonuses, we must reasonably believe that you were responsible for referring the candidate to us. #J-18808-Ljbffr