Hello Sai, thanks for taking the time to host this AMA!
I noticed that the current job posting states that “Location: GiveWell’s staff work primarily remotely, within the US and abroad. The positions offered in this hiring round are all eligible to work fully remotely within the US.”
I had three interrelated questions about the Operations Team’s hiring strategy, particularly for international applicants, for this round and future ones:
Geographic Restrictions: Given that GiveWell already employs staff abroad, what were the primary friction points that made international hiring unfeasible for this specific operational round, and what operational threshold would need to be met to open future rounds globally?
Diversity & LMIC Representation: GiveWell’s Our Mistakes page highlights past challenges in prioritizing staff diversity as a major issue. How is the Operations team thinking about balancing the search for top-fit candidates with improving representation from LMICs where GiveWell’s Top Charities primarily operate?
Cost-Effectiveness of Global Talent: Given GiveWell’s location-adjusted compensation model, hiring qualified international staff may be more cost-effective for the organization as it aims to adjust its absorptive capacity. Is expanding international hiring infrastructure for operational roles part of the plan as GiveWell’s internal scaffolding scales?
Hi tasvidkhan! Sorry for the lag in answering your questions—it took a minute for me to sort through my thoughts on these important topics.
In an ideal world we would love to be in a position to do everything. We’d love to hire people based in any country in the world and compensate them appropriately (tailoring our compensation principles to local market conditions). We’d love to invest a ton of time in building a candidate pipeline for every role that’s diverse across multiple dimensions; it’d be amazing if we could build internship or fellowship opportunities for underrepresented talent. Having a global workforce really requires a lot from an employer—things like making sure managers are trained and informed about the complexities of cross-border management; that we are compliant with employment laws everywhere we have staff, including around performance management and departures; that we can process and renew visas on a timely basis; that we have the ability to manage work across non-overlapping time zones. This is a very incomplete list of considerations!
At the moment, though, we are heavily constrained by our existing operations capacity, especially in People Operations. One of the reasons we are doing such a large hiring push now across Ops is so that we have enough human capacity not just to operate the footprint we currently have, but also to build out additional infrastructure so we can do more. We would love to be able to say “yes” to more internal requests for expansion and to more international candidates next year and further into the future.
Hello Sai, thanks for taking the time to host this AMA!
I noticed that the current job posting states that “Location: GiveWell’s staff work primarily remotely, within the US and abroad. The positions offered in this hiring round are all eligible to work fully remotely within the US.”
I had three interrelated questions about the Operations Team’s hiring strategy, particularly for international applicants, for this round and future ones:
Geographic Restrictions: Given that GiveWell already employs staff abroad, what were the primary friction points that made international hiring unfeasible for this specific operational round, and what operational threshold would need to be met to open future rounds globally?
Diversity & LMIC Representation: GiveWell’s Our Mistakes page highlights past challenges in prioritizing staff diversity as a major issue. How is the Operations team thinking about balancing the search for top-fit candidates with improving representation from LMICs where GiveWell’s Top Charities primarily operate?
Cost-Effectiveness of Global Talent: Given GiveWell’s location-adjusted compensation model, hiring qualified international staff may be more cost-effective for the organization as it aims to adjust its absorptive capacity. Is expanding international hiring infrastructure for operational roles part of the plan as GiveWell’s internal scaffolding scales?
Hi tasvidkhan! Sorry for the lag in answering your questions—it took a minute for me to sort through my thoughts on these important topics.
In an ideal world we would love to be in a position to do everything. We’d love to hire people based in any country in the world and compensate them appropriately (tailoring our compensation principles to local market conditions). We’d love to invest a ton of time in building a candidate pipeline for every role that’s diverse across multiple dimensions; it’d be amazing if we could build internship or fellowship opportunities for underrepresented talent. Having a global workforce really requires a lot from an employer—things like making sure managers are trained and informed about the complexities of cross-border management; that we are compliant with employment laws everywhere we have staff, including around performance management and departures; that we can process and renew visas on a timely basis; that we have the ability to manage work across non-overlapping time zones. This is a very incomplete list of considerations!
At the moment, though, we are heavily constrained by our existing operations capacity, especially in People Operations. One of the reasons we are doing such a large hiring push now across Ops is so that we have enough human capacity not just to operate the footprint we currently have, but also to build out additional infrastructure so we can do more. We would love to be able to say “yes” to more internal requests for expansion and to more international candidates next year and further into the future.