I’m pretty confused about the work of the RA role—it seems to include everything from epidemiological literature reviews to philosophical work on population ethics to following up on individual organisations you’ve funded.
Could you give some concrete info about how you and the RA determine what the RA works on?
The role does include all three of those things, and I think all three things are well served by the job qualifications listed in the posting. A common thread is that all involve trying to deliver an informative, well-calibrated answer to an action-relevant question, largely via discussion with knowledgeable parties and critical assessment of evidence and arguments.
In general, we have a list of the projects that we consider most important to complete, and we look for good matches between high-ranked projects and employees who seem well suited to them. I expect that most entry-level Research Analysts will try their hand at both cause prioritization and grant investigation work, and we’ll develop a picture of what they’re best at that we can then use to assign them more of one or the other (or something else, such as the work listed at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/get-involved/jobs/analyst-specializing-potential-risks-advanced-artificial-intelligence) over time.
I’m pretty confused about the work of the RA role—it seems to include everything from epidemiological literature reviews to philosophical work on population ethics to following up on individual organisations you’ve funded.
Could you give some concrete info about how you and the RA determine what the RA works on?
The role does include all three of those things, and I think all three things are well served by the job qualifications listed in the posting. A common thread is that all involve trying to deliver an informative, well-calibrated answer to an action-relevant question, largely via discussion with knowledgeable parties and critical assessment of evidence and arguments.
In general, we have a list of the projects that we consider most important to complete, and we look for good matches between high-ranked projects and employees who seem well suited to them. I expect that most entry-level Research Analysts will try their hand at both cause prioritization and grant investigation work, and we’ll develop a picture of what they’re best at that we can then use to assign them more of one or the other (or something else, such as the work listed at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/get-involved/jobs/analyst-specializing-potential-risks-advanced-artificial-intelligence) over time.
Thanks Holden!