About Center for Open Science

Position Type: Non-exempt (Hourly), Part-time

The Center for Open Science (COS) is committed to fostering openness, integrity, and reproducibility in scientific research. Our mission is to improve the alignment between scientific values and practices, enhancing the accumulation and application of knowledge. As part of a forward-thinking team that embodies a technology start-up mindset, we move quickly to identify challenges, develop solutions, and work collaboratively to promote openness.

COS maintains the OSF as a free, open source project management and collaboration tool that supports researchers throughout the entire research lifecycle - from planning, to conducting, to reporting, and discovering research. With 700,000 users globally, OSF is one of the most ubiquitous research management tools in many disciplines and communities. OSF users are primarily researchers, and the User Support Specialist will provide support and guidance to them as they follow best practices in their research workflows. A successful candidate for the role will have experience with research workflows or have been a researcher themselves, and able to provide guidance on open scholarship best practices to assist users.

About the role

As the User Support Specialist, you will play a crucial role in ensuring an excellent user experience for OSF users, supporting the Product team by managing user relationships, addressing inquiries, and providing triage support for technical issues. You will assist users in navigating the OSF, driving engagement with open science practices and contributing to the development of helpful user documentation. This role is integral to COS's mission of supporting scientific transparency and integrity through exceptional user support and communication.

What you'll do

• Provide primary issue triaging on the user support help desk, responding to user reports of issues, improvement suggestions, and feature requests by coordinating with product, engineering, and quality assurance teams to ensure prompt resolution.
• Extremely knowledgeable on general product capabilities in order to respond to user queries.
• Support community engagement programs by cultivating strong and trusted community and user relationships.
• Through user support, identify accomplishments of product users.
• Assist with spam mitigation tactics and reduction in mistakenly flagged spam content.
• Assist in the development of user documentation and resources.
• Report on customer relations activities regularly and support evaluation of user support trends. Create metrics reports on user support email trends for evaluation.
• Assist with landscape analysis around policies regarding best practices in repositories and scholarly communication standards
• Help identify and verify new feature requests.
• Assist with product onboarding experiences for new fee for service community members and technology partners.
• Lead or facilitate COS webinars and events for members and research communities, as well as post-event engagement.
• Provides support to the OSF help desk on member and community oriented issues.
• Assist in maintaining product descriptions and user resources, including drafting product updates and contributing to training materials.
• Maintain clear, detailed documentation of team processes, workflows, and product features, supporting team efficiency and knowledge sharing, and identifying opportunities for automation.
• When possible support communications plan and community engagement program by interacting with stakeholders in the member and researcher community.

Required Skills

• Significant experience with OSF (Open Science Framework) preferred.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Experience in customer/community engagement roles.
• Ability to work as a team player and collaborate across teams to achieve outcomes.
• Strong multitasking skills, with the ability to handle and prioritize various tasks.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and documentation skills with a keen attention to detail.
• Self-starting, industrious, and independent worker who seeks new challenges and responsibilities.
• Experience using customer interfacing systems such as Zendesk or Help Scout, a plus. 

Required Experience and/or Education

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• Experience within a research or scientific environment.
• 1+ years of experience in communications, engagement, or a related position​

Pay Range

• $23 - $24 per hour (USD)

Additional Information

• This is a fully remote position with a requirement to attend approximately two (2) multi-day in-person meetings per year.
• COS supports flexibility in work scheduling. This role has flexibility in scheduling with core hours between 11am - 4pm ET with occasional extended hours during peak periods (e.g., audit, budget, and major reporting cycles). This role entails working across multiple time zones to provide support and coordination among COS staff and global stakeholders. Modifications for different time zones will be considered for team collaboration.
• This position is fully remote/home based. Applications will be accepted from candidates based in the following US states: CA, CT, DC, DE, FL, IL, IN, MD, MA, MO, NJ, NY, NC, SC, OR, PA, TN, TX, VA, WV. 
• Please note, in order to be considered for this position you must be authorized to work in the United States and have a U.S. address and bank account.
• Please apply by submitting a resume and answering the pre-qualifying questions in lieu of a cover letter. Questions about the position and COS are welcome and can be directed to hr@cos.io.
• Please note: This is a permanent, part-time employee position. Applications seeking contract, freelance, or consulting arrangements will not be considered for this role.

For information on COS, including more information on employee benefits and our company culture, visit our website at https://www.cos.io/careers.

Please note, in order to be considered for this position you must be authorized to work in the United States and have a U.S. address and bank account. Remote workers must be located within the U.S.

This position will remain open for applications until March 13, 2026.

COS is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also strongly encourage applications from members of groups underrepresented in science and technology industries.