Associate Director, Editorial

Brief Description:

The Associate Director, Editorial leads WestEd's editorial team and ensures that the agency's most important products are delivered on time and meet WestEd's rigorous quality standards. As a nonpartisan, mission-driven research agency, WestEd's credibility rests on content that is accurate, objective, and grounded in evidence, and this role helps ensure that the agency's products meet that benchmark. In addition to guiding the quality assurance (QA) process for the agency's high-visibility and high-stakes products, this person helps staff across WestEd write more effectively and, as an advisor to the Communications leadership team, helps shape how the department supports the agency.

Position Overview:

This is a hands-on role, not a purely strategic one. Most days, you'll be scoping, assigning, and managing projects and editing complex manuscripts. Alongside that work, you'll lead an experienced editorial team made up of two senior developmental editors, a copyediting and proofreading manager, and a senior copy editor and proofreader. You'll also be a key resource for the agency's most complex questions about writing, editorial standards, and quality. The time split below is approximate and may shift from week to week. When priorities collide, delivering high-visibility products on time takes precedence over agency guidance and other projects.
• Developmental editing (~35%)
• Project management (~35%)
• Leading the editorial team (~15%)
• Agency guidance on writing, editing, and product development (~10%)
• Additional editorial and Communications work (~5%)

Candidates should expect all of these, every week, and should be energized by that mix rather than looking to move away from hands-on work. All products come to us on others' timelines, and we're accountable for getting those products through the QA process on time.

Key Responsibilities

Developmental editing (~35%)
• Provide developmental editing on high-visibility, complex, and sensitive products (e.g., research and evaluation reports, policy briefs, practitioner guides, infographics, agency collateral materials) with the aim of making each as clear and useful as possible for its intended audience and purpose.
• Uphold WestEd's standards for accurate, objective, evidence-based content, ensuring that claims are well supported and appropriately qualified.
• Diagnose and resolve structural problems, revise content for overall logic and clarity, draft suggested text, and rework sentences and paragraphs for readability and consistency.
• Work collaboratively with designers, proofreaders, and accessibility experts on the CCS team to prepare individual products for public release.
• Identify accessibility issues and suggest adjustments that make documents more inclusive for people with disabilities.
• Work iteratively with authors as they review and approve edits, serving as a thought partner to improve their individual products and to help them become stronger writers over time.

Project management (~35%)
• Lead intake for new products and publications: Read each request; judge the scope, complexity, and level of editorial support it needs; and decide whether it can be assigned and started right away or needs an intake meeting to clarify purpose, audience, and scope with project staff.
• Serve as the editorial team's primary point of contact for project staff and leaders: Provide estimates and planning information, negotiate timelines and scope, and partner with project leadership on how editorial capacity is scoped and funded in new projects.
• Make labor allocation decisions across all concurrent projects to ensure effective and efficient support, balancing editing, design, proofreading, and accessibility capacity.
• Serve as the default project manager for the wide range of "in-between" products that are not assigned a developmental editor.
• Track work in Asana (our project management system); anticipate bottlenecks; and coordinate across editorial, design, proofreading, and accessibility staff to resolve them.
• Evaluate and continually refine standards and processes for intake, estimation, prioritization, and QA workflow so that products are delivered on time.

Leading the editorial team (~15%)
• Lead an experienced, collegial team of four direct reports, setting clear expectations and giving regular, candid feedback.
• Serve as a Talent Manager for these direct reports: Support their professional growth and job satisfaction through regular check-ins, development plans, and stretch opportunities and conduct their midyear and annual performance reviews.
• Draw on the team's extensive expertise and institutional knowledge: Seek their input on everything from editorial standards and processes to workloads and priorities.
• Delegate decisions and problem-solving to support the team's autonomy, judgment, and ownership.
• Serve as a sounding board on complex or sensitive editorial issues escalated by editorial team members, making the final call when needed.
• Ensure editorial quality and consistency across the team's output, identifying recurring patterns and coaching team members on editorial judgment and craft as needed.
• Guide the team's responsible use of AI in editing: Set clear expectations for when and how it's used and support the team to build skill and judgment in using AI critically and effectively.
• Keep the team staffed to meet the agency's needs: Participate in hiring and onboarding, engage contractors when appropriate, and make the case for additional staff when workload warrants.

Agency guidance (~10%)
• Communicate QA expectations to the agency and clarify Communications processes for high-visibility products so that staff know what to expect.
• Provide guidance on the responsible use of AI in writing (e.g., training, internal messaging, intranet resources), working with colleagues across the agency.
• Identify ways to strengthen writing across the agency beyond individual projects (e.g., training, tools, guidance).
• Flag concerns about accuracy, objectivity, nonpartisan stance, and adequate evidence for claims, working with authors and project leaders to resolve them.
• Lead decisions on WestEd's house style in consultation with the editorial team.

Additional responsibilities (~5%)
• Serve as a member of the Communications leadership team, helping make strategic decisions about the department's work and how it supports the agency.
• Edit or contribute to high-stakes funding proposals and RFP responses and to agency materials such as capacity statements, annual reports, and web content.

What We're Looking For:

Required Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree or higher
• Minimum 10 years of experience in roles in which developmental editing of nonfiction publications (e.g., reports, briefs, practitioner guides) was the primary responsibility
• Experience supervising or leading a team

Expected Professional Qualifications

• Strong project management and prioritization skills; comfort with project management software (ideally with Asana) and with the day-to-day logistics of tracking many concurrent projects
• Ability to set clear expectations and explain constraints and trade-offs to project staff in plain language
• Exceptional developmental editing skills
• Ability to quickly digest complex research content and judge whether claims are supported by the evidence
• Sound judgment on appropriate use of AI in editorial work

Expected Personal Qualifications

• Diplomacy and credibility in giving candid feedback to senior authors and project leaders
• Client-service orientation: builds productive working relationships with staff who may be new to, or wary of, editorial review and negotiates timelines and scope creatively without sacrificing QA standards
• Coach's instinct: helps authors and editors improve their skills, not just fix their drafts
• Delegator's mindset: empowers others to make decisions and take initiative
• Collaborative approach to leadership: seeks out and builds on the expertise of the editorial team and Communications colleagues and is able to make clear, timely decisions when needed
• Steadiness with externally driven timelines: thrives in a role in which every product arrives on someone else's schedule-with externally imposed deadlines-and finds ways to deliver on time while maintaining quality standards

Desired Qualifications

• Advanced degree in education, English, public policy, or a related field or equivalent experience
• Knowledge of education and human development fields, research methods, and federal publishing contexts
• Experience editing research-based publications and ensuring claims are supported by evidence
• Command of APA, CMOS, and house-style conventions
• Familiarity with accessibility (Section 508) in publishing

*Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this position. Successful candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

WestEd conducts a criminal background check, fingerprint validation, and education verification for all new hires. Any offers of employment will be contingent on receiving a clear background check in accordance with applicable law.

SALARY AND BENEFITS:

The full salary range for this position, WestEd level (13), is $140,800 to $220,000, but WestEd does not typically hire at or near the top of the salary range. The typical hiring range for this role is $140,800 to $176,000. The actual offer considers multiple factors, including but not limited to education, experience, internal equity, and other organizational needs.

In addition to the base salary, benefits include:
• 15% contribution toward retirement effective day 1 of employment and immediately 100% vested
• Pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Account option
• All health/welfare benefits are effective the first of the month following the hire date
• 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

For more details about our benefits, go to: https://www.wested.org/work-at-wested/#benefits WestEd is a Drug Free Employer and maintains a drug-free workplace. #LI-Remote #Circa-Remote