Rethink Priorities is hiring fellows, research assistants, and researchers in several cause areas
We are also hiring operations staff — find out more here.
We are having two webinars on these roles
AI Governance & Strategy and Longtermism on April 5th, 2022. Find out more here.
Animal Welfare and Global Health & Development on April 5th, 2022. Find out more here.
Summary
TLDR: Rethink Priorities is hiring for lots of research positions. Apply here. You can apply for as many of these roles (and our operations roles) as you’d like to!
Rethink Priorities is expanding our research teams in several of the cause areas we work in. Specifically, we are hiring:
Fellows — early-career researchers interested in temporarily exploring EA research
Research Assistants — early-career researchers interested in aiding ongoing research projects and researchers
Researchers — researchers at any career level interested in conducting and leading research projects
(We say “early-career” to mean that people with little experience with research and/or with the relevant topic area could still be excellent fits for these roles. But these roles are of course also open to applicants with more experience!)
We’re hiring fellows, research assistants, and/or researchers for several teams right now:
Research roles at RP are a great way to explore a specific topic alongside others with varied backgrounds and interests across the EA landscape. Right now, we are especially focused on cultivating early-career researchers to help with talent bottlenecks in the EA research space, so we have an especially large number of open positions for three- to five-month Research Fellows and permanent Research Assistants. However, we expect to have other permanent research positions open in the near future.
Research Assistants are a new permanent position at RP. Research Assistants will conduct a variety of tasks to support particular teams and researchers on their agendas. Depending on the team, they may also have opportunities to explore their own research interests. What these roles will look like differs between teams, so we encourage you to check out the relevant job descriptions for more details!
Topics that our teams are focused on right now include:
AI Governance and Strategy: What AI development & deployment scenarios will occur, and what actions grantmakers, policymakers, and others should take to reduce extreme risks in those scenarios
General Longtermism: Facilitating faster and better creation of “longtermist megaprojects”, and improving clarity about which “intermediate goals” longtermists should pursue
Global Health and Development: Climate change and identifying global health interventions that are cost competitive with GiveWell’s top charities
Animal Welfare: The cost effectiveness of farmed animal welfare interventions, invertebrate sentience, and potential wild animal welfare interventions
Why RP?
You get to work on interesting topics, and directly inform how millions of dollars are donated or used in the EA community.
You can use up to 10% of your time for professional development, learning, or projects you want to pursue outside your assigned tasks.
We are entirely remote, and can hire people in most countries.
We are a highly flexible employer — most of our positions are open to candidates at any amount of hours above 20 per week, and staff set their own schedules.
We offer competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits, including parental leave and sabbaticals for employees with a few years of tenure.
Our work culture is also great:
We have an incredibly low turnover rate.
RP staff consistently rate RP extremely highly on measures like psychological safety, as well as questions like “RP is a good place to work.” For the latter question, we’ve never had an internal survey where a staff member hasn’t answered 5⁄5 on a Likert scale (answering anonymously)
RP research staff consistently report that the administrative burden of working at RP is minimal. For many staff, it is well below 1% of their total time.
We are growing rapidly, and strongly emphasize professional development. We often promote internally and provide opportunities for staff to advance in the organization, regardless of whether they directly manage staff.
We respect that people have lives outside their jobs, and we work hard to ensure staff have a healthy work-life balance.
Open roles
Note: Our descriptions of who would be a good fit are mostly nice-to-haves rather than requirements; we encourage you to seriously consider applying even if you don’t perfectly match our descriptions!
Applications for all of these roles are open until April 17th, 2022.
Executive Team
Research Assistant — Executive Team (Longtermism and Surveys)
Salary: $63,000 to $81,000 USD
Summary: An early-career researcher interested in working directly with a co-CEO to help inform their strategy setting and decision making
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in organizational strategy, longtermism, and building the EA community
Research Assistant — Executive Team (Global Health and Animal Welfare)
Salary: $63,000 to $81,000 USD
Summary: An early-career researcher interested in working directly with a co-CEO to help inform their strategy setting and decision making
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in organizational strategy, animal welfare, and global health and development
Researcher — Operations and Organizational Design
Salary: $72,000 to $115,000 USD, depending on experience
Summary: A researcher focusing on organizational design and operations at RP, helping improve our entire organization, especially as the complexity of our longtermism team grows.
A good fit for:
Researchers interested in organizational design
Researchers interested in seeing their research applied immediately
People with backgrounds in experimental research
AI Governance and Strategy
Research Assistant — AI Governance and Strategy
Salary: $63,000 to $67,000 USD
Summary: A research team member focused on supporting our AI Governance and Strategy researchers in various ways; more details here
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in working with and assisting research staff with research in the AI governance space
Research Fellow — AI Governance and Strategy
Salary: $63,000 to $67,000 USD
Summary: A temporary (3-5 month) position leading or collaborating on research projects (just as our Researchers do), while also testing and building fit for research work in this area
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in exploring their fit for research roles in the AI governance space
Researchers considering transitioning to AI governance, and wanting experience in the field
General Longtermism
Research Assistant — General Longtermism
Salary: $63,000 to $67,000 USD
Summary: A research team member focused on supporting our General Longtermism researchers in various ways; more details here
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in working with and assisting research staff with research in the longtermism space
People interested in longtermism megaprojects and/or forecasting
Research Fellow — General Longtermism
Salary: $63,000 to $67,000 USD
Summary: A temporary (3-5 month) position leading or collaborating on research projects (just as our Researchers do), while also testing and building fit for research work in this area
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in exploring their fit for research roles in the longtermism space
Researchers considering transitioning to longtermism research, and wanting experience in the field
People interested in longtermism megaprojects and/or forecasting
Animal Welfare
Researcher — Animal Welfare
Salary: $72,000 to $115,000 USD, depending on experience
Summary: A permanent research position for a quantitative-focused researcher interested in studying farmed animal welfare
A good fit for:
Experienced researchers with strong backgrounds in quantitative methods and statistics
Researchers with experience conducting research in the farmed animal welfare space
Research Assistant — Animal Welfare
Salary: $63,000 to $67,000 USD
Summary: A research team member primarily focused on assisting researchers with their agendas, conducting literature reviews, summarizing research, and related tasks
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in working with and assisting research staff with research in the animal welfare space
Research Fellow — Animal Welfare
Salary: $63,000 to $67,000 USD
Summary: A temporary (3-5 month) position focused on building research skills while working with experienced researchers
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in exploring their fit for research roles in the animal welfare space
Researchers considering transitioning to animal welfare research, and wanting experience in the field
Global Health and Development
Research Assistant — Global Health and Development
Salary: $63,000 to $67,000 USD
Summary: A research team member primarily focused on assisting researchers with their agendas, conducting literature reviews, summarizing research, and related tasks
A good fit for:
Early-career researchers interested in working with and assisting research staff with research in the global health space
- Rethink Priorities’ Operations team is expanding — we’re hiring for several positions on our Core Ops and Special Projects teams by (21 Mar 2022 20:22 UTC; 69 points)
- Future Matters #1: AI takeoff, longtermism vs. existential risk, and probability discounting by (23 Apr 2022 23:32 UTC; 57 points)
- 's comment on The dangers of high salaries within EA organisations by (10 Jun 2022 16:33 UTC; 12 points)
This is really exciting. I was a Research Fellow at RP last summer (on the longtermism team), and have a lot of appreciation for the program and the organization—I think it helped me a lot. And I wrote a brief reflection on this experience about half a year ago.
Good luck and thank you!
Really great to see RP continuing to expand. I’m particularly excited by your Research Fellow roles—they look like a great opportunity for aspiring researchers to upskill!
This is quite impressive. I’d love to see you write up a full post diving into how you’ve cultivated such a positive internal culture—would love to learn from your experience.
Thanks! We are happy to be a good place to work and will keep that idea in mind for the future.