I am very interested in being a part of this funding request and would be happy to be on the search committee and to help on board and manage the new recruit. My effort would be covered by own funding request (#285).

I've been keeping a list of things which this role could include:

• Monthly NumFocus updates
• Facebook group - Discourse forum - Stack Exchange moderation and crossposting.
• Slack moderation and crossposting
• Twitter post of announcements and replies to mentions
• Help with Coordination Meetings
• Help with expanding workshops to more users
• Help with Learn and tutorials, especially publicity
• Website content refresh and updates.
• Community Survey
• User Survey
• Maybe a blog, or at least some more words on the website.
• new thing: IBM-sponsored Open-Source Science Initiative at SciPy next week as a top-level NumFOCUS effort focused on community stewardship, mapping scientific needs to OSS, and prioritizing the gaps as well as resourcing the work required to meet the needs of the scientists..

I sent up several updates based on your comments here, @kelle. I also added some (admittedly a bit nebulous) selection criteria. Any thoughts on this?

(oh and I left off the IBM-sponsored thing but added a generic "new things as they come up")

I was curious about the choice of $120 as an hourly rate. Is there motivation for that?

Please react to this comment to vote on this proposal (👍, 👎, or no reaction for +0)

Like @jdswinbank, I'm curious about the rationale for the funding request: is it reasonable to expect funding at the assistant professor level (which $60k at 50% implies) for such a position, or more like a postdoc?

This position is for a professional scientific community manager with experience and training in that field.

Keep in mind, when hiring folks as consultants, we need to include their overhead costs and benefits in the hourly rate. That makes it difficult to compare to academic salaries which don't usually include the extra 60-70% charged on top by the University.

Bottom line, as the previous community manager, I know that there is a lot to do. I would like to have the budget available to be able to recruit someone good and offer them something attractive for ~50% of their time.

OK, that makes sense, though it makes one wonder whether another entity than a university should do the hiring!

The current idea is that this person will be hired through NumFocus as a consultant.

How much are other companies/projects paying someone of similar role?

@kelle pinged me so adding some resources

Current posting for US Research Software Sustainability Institute Community Manager. Karthik Ram hiring.

Position Type: Full-time with benefits
Salary range: 75-90k USD annually with benefits
Location: US-Remote, with supervisors based in California.

rOpenSci's posting for recently hired community manager

full-time contract position with a salary range of $70,000-$85,000, USD commensurate with experience, skills, and local benefits requirements.

Case studies of community managers with two-page interviews, each describing one of 25 community managers from across the STEM ecosystem. By Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement (CSCCE). Great to get a sense of the diversity of roles played depending on the goals of the organization they work for.

• August 2022 summary of community call on case studies
  • Note therein the five challenges that the analysis showed community managers face & draft recommendations for supporting scientific community managers
• report coming before Oct 2022. Meanwhile, here's more background and links to all case studies

Congratulations! The community has expressed support for this FR, and the Finance Committee has determined it can be funded. This FR has been approved for $48,000, to be funded from the Moore grant.

@jdswinbank is the Finance Committee member who will be supporting this project. They will update this PR with the amount and then merge it, as well as being in contact with you to set up any necessary agreements and relevant Open Collective financial arrangements. They will also open a new issue where progress on this project can be discussed.