Job description
About Open Philanthropy
Open Philanthropy is a philanthropic funder and advisor; our mission is to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us. We stress openness to many possibilities and have chosen our focus areas based on importance, neglectedness, and tractability. Our current giving areas include potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, global health and development, scientific research, global public health policy, farm animal welfare, and biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. In 2024, we recommended $650 million to high-impact causes, and we’ve recommended over $3.9 billion in grants since our formation.
About the work
Our Potential Risks from Advanced AI focus area supports a wide range of work focused on reducing the risk of catastrophes caused by the development of advanced artificial intelligence, and on helping society prepare for advanced AI.
We’re currently divided into three sub-teams, which often work together or overlap, though we are growing and we expect the boundaries between teams to change over time:
Luke Muehlhauser leads our work on AI Governance and Policy
Peter Favaloro leads our work on Technical AI Safety
Eli Rose leads our work on Capacity Building and supports work on the above two areas
In this round, we’re hiring for Eli’s team — roles which focus on capacity-building work and/or supporting grantmaking by Peter and Luke’s teams. Successful hires filling these roles might move to Peter or Luke’s teams in the future, depending on skillset and needs.
About the role
Program Associates help the program achieve its goals, often by investigating funding opportunities and by proactively developing new ideas that lead to grants.
After their first year, people in this role can expect to become significantly responsible for grants totalling >$10M per year, or for non-grantmaking projects (such as research and evaluation work) we think are of equal or higher value.
Senior Program Associates take on more responsibility. For example, they might lead projects with increased autonomy, manage particularly complex projects, or manage Program Associates, adding up to >$25m/yr in grantmaking, or other contributions we think are equal or higher value.
In all of these roles, you might:
Investigate grant opportunities. Essentially, a grant investigation is a focused, practical research project aimed at answering the question “should Open Philanthropy fund this, or not (and if so, at what level, for what length of time, etc.)?”
Design, implement, and advertise new grantmaking initiatives. A recent example is our RFP on improving capability evaluations.
Scope out priority projects in AI safety and “pitch” them to potential founders.
Do research to inform program strategy, such as helping Open Philanthropy investigate a new grantmaking area within AI safety or evaluate the historical cost-effectiveness of a certain kind of grant.
Build and maintain relationships in the field, ensuring that feedback flows between us, our grantees, and other stakeholders.
Who might be a good fit
You might be a good fit for this role if you:
Have strong analytical and critical thinking skills, especially the ability to quickly grasp complex issues, find the best arguments for and against a proposition, and skeptically evaluate claims. You should feel comfortable thinking in terms of expected value and reasoning quantitatively and probabilistically about tradeoffs and evidence.
Are a strong writer.
Have a good inside-view model of AI safety topics — for example, you can debate AI safety ideas and proposals convincingly, and explain cruxes and disagreements between different perspectives. (Note this role does not require that you have technical AI safety expertise — for example, you do not need to be able to replicate a technical paper.)
Feel excited by the idea of getting to know many different people and projects, and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses like an investor would.
Have good social awareness and flexibility — i.e., you can effectively communicate with and understand a wide variety of people in a range of professional contexts.
Are inclined to take full responsibility and ownership over the outcome of a task, including poorly-scoped tasks that require first-principles thinking.
Communicate in a clear, information-dense, and calibrated way, with good reasoning transparency, both in writing and in person. You should be willing to ask questions if you are confused, and push back on conclusions you disagree with or don’t understand, even if they come from your manager or someone else more senior than you.
As described above, our team’s priorities can be clustered into “proactive projects”, such as scoping new organizations and pitching founders on them, and “grant evaluation work,” which means engaging with concrete funding applications that were already submitted.
Proactive projects are especially well-suited for people who:
Feel excited by the intellectual work of evaluating possible funding areas and developing visions for them.
Enjoy the practical work of taking on fuzzily-scoped projects, refining their scope, deciding what to do next, and iterating.
Have strong networks in the relevant fields and communities, and are generally in the habit of talking to people and making connections.
Grant evaluation is especially well-suited for people who:
Are highly diligent and detail-oriented.
Have strong project management skills, rarely drop balls, and complete a wide range of work tasks quickly and efficiently.
There’s no such thing as a “perfect” candidate. If you are on the fence about applying because you are unsure whether you are qualified, we would strongly encourage you to apply.
Role details & benefits
Compensation: The baseline compensation for the Program Associate and Senior Program Associate roles respectively is $136,831.14 or $186,861.09, which would be distributed as a base salary of $118,983.60 or $163,861.09 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $17,847.54 or $23,000. All compensation will be distributed in the form of take-home salary for internationally-based hires.
- These compensation figures assume a location in the San Francisco Bay Area; there would be geographic adjustments downwards for candidates based in other locations.
Time zones and location: We prefer hires to be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, but are open to considering candidates in other places.
We’ll support candidates with the costs of relocation to the Bay.
We’ll also consider sponsoring U.S. work authorization for international candidates (though we don’t control who is and isn’t eligible for a visa and can’t guarantee visa approval).
Benefits: Our benefits package includes:
Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the U.S. for you and any eligible dependents) and an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement for certain other personalhealth expenses.
Dental, vision, and life insurance for you and your family.
Four weeks of PTO recommended per year.
Four months of fully paid family leave.
A generous and flexible expense policy — we encourage staff to expense the ergonomic equipment, software, and other services that they need to stay healthy and productive.
A continual learning policy that encourages staff to spend time on professional development with related expenses covered.
Support for remote work — we’ll cover a remote workspace outside your home if you need one, or connect you with an Open Philanthropy coworking hub in your city.
We can’t always provide every benefit we offer U.S. staff to international hires, but we’re working on it (and will usually provide cash equivalents of any benefits we can’t offer in your country).
Start date: The start date is flexible, and we may be willing to wait for an extended period of time for the best candidate, though we’d prefer someone to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer.
We aim to employ people with many different experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds who share our passion for accomplishing as much good as we can. We are committed to creating an environment where all employees have the opportunity to succeed, and we do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.
If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact [email protected].
We are considering candidates on a rolling basis and strongly encourage you to apply as early as possible. We expect to close the round down by 11.59pm Pacific Time on June 8, 2025.
US-based Program staff are typically employed by Open Philanthropy Project LLC, which is not a 501©(3) tax-exempt organization. As such, this role is unlikely to be eligible for public service loan forgiveness programs.
