Senior Grant Administrator

The Senior Grant Administrator is a high-impact strategic role within the Office of Sponsored Research, serving as an area resource and expert partner for Broad faculty and investigators. In this role, you don't just drive the bus, you optimize the route. You will navigate the Broad's unique, matrixed environment with a high degree of autonomy, using expert judgment to solve relatively complex problems and adapt existing approaches to the global funding landscape.

Unlike traditional department roles, this position empowers you to directly engage with diverse internal and external networks, managing a complex funding portfolio with minimal instruction. You are an influential partner who shares complex concepts to inform and direct action among Principal Investigators (PIs), lab leadership, and external sponsors.

By proactively steering proposal development and acting as a resource for developing employees, you safeguard the Institute's resources while enabling the next generation of scientific breakthroughs.

Key Responsibilities:
Relationship Management & Strategic Partnership

• Serve as a senior liaison for complex sponsor requests, managing high-level relationships with PIs, lab members, and administrative offices (HR, Finance, OSAP) to provide sophisticated financial research support.
• Engage directly with sponsors and collaborating institutions as a senior representative, facilitating complex agreement reviews and driving subaward execution with minimal guidance from leadership.
• Enhance cross-functional alignment within the Office of Sponsored Research, adopting and implementing process improvements to meet regulatory and institutional compliance standards.
• Directs regular financial check-ins with PIs, managing the full lifecycle from agenda development to formal documentation and providing actionable insight into funding health and compliance

• Facilitate the end-to-end proposal development process for moderately complex projects, steering the lifecycle from interpretation of intricate sponsor requirements to successful submission.
• Lead contract reviews, interpret sponsor guidelines and award terms, and determine the appropriate course of action. May occasionally escalate items for negotiation.
• Extract and summarize relevant data points from award documentation and communicate them to the award setup team.
• Develop complex budgets and justifications, ensuring administrative documents and subrecipient packages are competitive and aligned with Broad's strategic objectives.
• Proactively manage internal systems of record to ensure data integrity and drive "Just-in-Time" submissions with limited oversight.

• Drive advanced reconciliation and financial forecasting, meet regularly with the PI and lab delegates to proactively identify "funding cliffs" and recommend complex, strategic reallocations
• Manage the full award lifecycle, including award setup, subaward creation and monitoring, procurement, travel, specialized service facility approvals, and account closeout. Independently review work at critical points to ensure deliverables are met.
• Prepare and compile progress and financial reports for sponsors alongside the Closeouts team.
• Oversee complex personnel effort and salary allocations, budget creation, and approval of hiring requisitions, SSF quotes, travel reports, equipment purchases, and affiliate billing agreement invoices. Maintain strict adherence to sponsor mandates and the bi-annual certification process.
• Act as an area resource for determining whether expenses are "allowable, allocable, and reasonable" under specific grant terms.

• Maintain rigorous documentation for PI and institutional budget projections in alignment with federal guidance, including Biosketch and Other Support forms.
• Monitor subrecipient activity and internal cost transfers to ensure audit-readiness and policy compliance. Implements process improvements as needed.
• Lead documentation efforts for annual institutional audits and ad-hoc sponsor audits and resolves compliance bottlenecks.

• Bachelor's degree in a related professional discipline with 5+ years of related experience, OR Associate's degree with 7+ years of related experience.
• Experience must be in grant administration across federal and non-federal grant lifecycles (NIH, NSF, DOD, etc.).
• Demonstrated proficiency in financial analysis, budgeting, and forecasting within complex environments.
• Experience with Excel, G-Suite, and grants management software (e.g., ASSIST, Grants.gov, S2S systems).
• Core Competencies
• Accountability & Autonomy: Self-starter who proactively takes on complex work and owns outcomes with minimal instruction, exercising judgment to adapt approaches under moderate supervision.
• Relational Communication: Share moderately complex concepts with a variety of stakeholders. Directs subsequent action.
• Critical Problem-Solving: Solve moderately complex problems using knowledge and judgment to adapt existing approaches.
• Sponsored Research Acumen: Demonstrate subject matter fluency of sponsored research concepts and principles across complex environments. Has a deep understanding of the organization's mission, standards, and processes.
• Mentorship & Resource for Others: Acts as a resource for developing employees and peers on the immediate team.
• Integrity: Exercise absolute discretion when handling privileged financial and personnel data. Uphold the highest ethical standards in financial stewardship and compliance, exercising sound judgment to protect institutional resources

• Hybrid Environment: A blend of remote and in-office work (2 days a week onsite).
• Engagement: Requires frequent communication via video conferencing, email, and in-person collaboration.
• Physical: Standard office environment tasks (computer use, analyzing data) with occasional light lifting.