Overview

TED is looking for a part-time Community Support specialist, ideally based in the midwestern United States, who can help respond to our community’s inquiries about our various media platforms, programs, and initiatives. This 3-6 month contract position is based remotely but reports virtually to TED’s New York office. The contract can possibly be extended beyond 3-6 months based on performance and team needs.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Respond to and resolve TED’s community support issues using in-depth and broad knowledge of the entire TED organization
  • Clarify complex inquiries and direct them to the appropriate TED team
  • Work with the Community Support leads to prioritize user issues as they arise, and create organizational awareness around trending issues as they emerge
  • Work with the leads to flag website or app bugs, and track potential website or app improvements

Requirements:

  • The capacity to be infinitely patient, authentic, and warm with our community
  • Excellent written communication skills
  • Possession of a wide range of technical knowledge
  • Comfortable working with technical terms you may not yet understand
  • Comfortable in a startup-like environment where everyone wears multiple hats
  • A collaborative team player who is also comfortable working independently
  • Excited by the prospect of constantly improving our systems for bug tracking and ticketing
  • Capable of and willing to work remotely
  • In possession of a working computer with reliable internet access
  • Ability to pass a short writing test

Experience:

  • At least one year of experience doing customer support, either virtual or customer-facing

A passion for TED talks, and a broad interest in the world – including science/technology, design/architecture, global development, entertainment/arts – are big pluses. Multilingualism (especially in Spanish) is helpful, but not required. Candidates should find fulfillment in details, efficiency, logistics, and consistency, and should be comfortable working in the casual but high-minded work environment of a nonprofit organization.

Also: we only hire extremely nice people!

About TED

TED is owned by a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation. Our agenda is to make great ideas accessible and spark conversation. Everything we do — from our TED Talks videos to the projects sparked by the TED Prize, from the global TEDx community to the TED-Ed lesson series — is driven by this goal: How can we best spread great ideas?

TED is owned by the Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation (a 501(c)3 organization under US tax code). The foundation was established in 1996 by publishing entrepreneur Chris Anderson.

The goal of the Sapling Foundation is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to provide a platform for thinkers, visionaries and teachers, so that people around the globe can gain a better understanding of the biggest issues faced by the world, and feed a desire to help create a better future. Core to this goal is a belief that there is no greater force for changing the world than a powerful idea.

TED is a global community — and so is our staff. We're headquartered in New York and Vancouver, but the collaborative and global nature of our work means we have staffers, advisors and volunteers worldwide.