Joseph Lemien

Karma: 3,356

I have work experience in HR and Operations. I read a lot, I enjoy taking online courses, and I do some yoga and some rock climbing. I enjoy learning languages, and I think that I tend to have a fairly international/cross-cultural focus or awareness in my life. I was born and raised in a monolingual household in the US, but I’ve lived most of my adult life outside the US, with about ten years in China, two years in Spain, and less than a year in Brazil.

As far as EA is concerned, I’m fairly cause agnostic/cause neutral. I think that I am a little bit more influenced by virtue ethics and stoicism than the average EA, and I also occasionally find myself thinking about inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in EA. Some parts of the EA community that I’ve observed in-person seem not very welcoming to outsides, or somewhat gatekept. I tend to care quite a bit about how exclusionary or welcoming communities are.

I was told by a friend in EA that I should brag about how many books I read because it is impressive, but I feel uncomfortable being boastful, so here is my clunky attempt to brag about that.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, opinions are my own, not my employer’s.

Joseph Lemien 14 May 2026 0:30 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: EA Organisation Updates thread: May 2026
MATS is hiring for a Head of People role, which will be both our first fully dedicated HR/People/People Operations role, as well as part of our leadership team.
There are lots of systems and processes that we want to build and develop, and we are looking for people who have the experience of building the HR parts of an organization. This will be a busy and complex role. The most competitive candidates will have experience helping a tech and/or non-profit organization scale from sub-50 to 100+, as well as more than one experience of building an HR function from scratch. Quoting directly from the job description:
We expect to hire someone who has all of the following:
- Demonstrated experience building or significantly expanding HR/People systems in a growing organization. You have set up people processes where few or none existed before—whether in a startup, a scaling nonprofit, or a fast-growing team within a larger org.
- 5+ years of professional experience in People Operations, HR, or a closely related function. Your title might not have been “Head of People”—but you have owned people systems, not just maintained them.
- Fluency in organizational culture, with a strong grasp of how to align organizational dynamics and operationalize values to foster a positive working environment that motivates and empowers people to do their best—ensuring team members feel MATS is a great place to work and grow.
- Experience directly handling employee relations: workplace conflicts, performance management issues, investigations, accommodations, and separations.
- Strong advisory and coaching skills. You have helped managers navigate people topics—leadership, performance, team dynamics, career development conversations—and you’re trusted by people at all levels to handle sensitive matters with discretion and care.
- Advanced understanding of the employee lifecycle and fluency managing people operations: professional development, performance review frameworks, employee handbooks / HR policy suites, onboarding programs, learning and training programs, compensation & benefits structures, etc.
- Working knowledge of employment law sufficient to identify risks and make day-to-day compliance decisions without needing to consult counsel on routine matters.
- Clear, proactive written and verbal communication skills. You can write policies people actually read, deliver difficult messages with empathy and professionalism, and adapt your communication to different audiences.
- A collaborative, low-ego approach. You’ll be building alongside a brand-new COO and Recruiting Lead—you need to be comfortable with shared ownership, evolving scope, and an org structure that’s in flux.

Joseph Lemien 18 Mar 2026 16:24 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What I didn’t expect about being a funder
how come they weren’t reaching out when I was the same old James just a month or two ago
Very relatable. I’m not a funder or a grant maker, but when I’ve been associated with organizations that are well-known or that have some level of prestige the difference is like night and day. I’ve been involved in hiring quite a bit as well, which also affects things. People have seen a job title of human resources or people operations and wanted to get inside info about job at orgs. It is unfortunately one of the downsides of being associated with power and resources, or even of being perceived as associated.

Joseph Lemien 6 Mar 2026 4:01 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Patrick Gruban 🔸’s comment on: Joseph Lemien’s Shortform
Are there specific skills that you see that regular training programs don’t do well and might be better suited to offer specifically for our ecosystem?
Hmmm, that is a good prompt. I can’t really think of any. I do want to see more EAs know how to manage people, to understand what project management actually is, to understand how to run a meeting, how to develop a team, and so on. But those aren’t skills that EA has a comparative advantage in training people. I guess I see so many EAs with alignment and general EA knowledge, but lacking these kinds of general professional skills, and I really want these people (who have devoted so much time and effort to EA) to have better professional competencies. But that is probably less efficient than finding people who already have the experience/skills/competencies. So I guess I’ve been viewing this more emotionally rather than rationally.

Joseph Lemien 5 Mar 2026 19:41 UTC
11 points
2 ∶ 2
on: Joseph Lemien’s Shortform
TLDR: Is it good that the EA ‘bootcamps’ tends to spend resources on thinking about career paths rather than developing useful skills?
I have a vague impression that the various ‘bootcamps’ around effective altruism tend to focus on something like “motivation, encouragement, and peer support for thinking about (and planning for) impactful career paths” rather than “gaining skills.” I keep thinking that we have plenty of people involved in EA who are onboard with the general ideas and who want to contribute, but who lack specific skills. Is this a good thing?
This is all pretty low confidence/exploratory, as I haven’t participated in High Impact Professionals, or CEA’s Bootcamps, only read about and heard about them.
I’m mainly thinking about people management, budgeting, project management, and similar general professional skills; of course there is also broadly a need for more specific skills, like AI safety researcher.

Joseph Lemien 28 Feb 2026 16:38 UTC
14 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Joseph Lemien’s comment on: CEA’s response to sexual harassment
As of now, this comment has 13 disagree votes. I’d be interested to hear the reasoning behind those. Is this a disagreement with my claim that “It is very basic professionalism to not hit on, flirt with, or ask out colleagues,” or is this a disagreeing with some other aspect of my comment?
EDIT: I made my comment in the context of a small organization, and I now see that my previous comment is over-reaching. The context of flirting with a colleague at a company of 10,000 and and multiple offices/locations is of course very different that flirting with a colleague at a non-profit of only a few dozen people. I still claim that people should not be flirting or hitting on colleagues within a small team, where you see the same people at work every day. But I do understand that the context is different if there is a person that is employed by the same employer and you won’t have any projects with that person, or you won’t interact with that person as a part of your normal work. I also suspect that I simply have different norms/standards regarding professionalism than many of the commenters here.

Joseph Lemien 28 Feb 2026 1:20 UTC
13 points
18 ∶ 32
on: CEA’s response to sexual harassment
Riley also discussed asking me out twice while we were colleagues, once through text and again at a CEA retreat.
In addition to what was written about you and shared, I am shocked that the culture and norms at CEA allowed asking out colleagues. It is very basic professionalism to not hit on, flirt with, or ask out colleagues.
I’m so sorry that you had to endure this, Frances. No one should have such deeply personal information shared non-consensually. I wish that this hadn’t happened to you.

Joseph Lemien 9 Feb 2026 20:10 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: EA Organization Updates thread: February 2026
MATS is hiring for two roles on the program team. MATS will have more than a dozen employees at EAG San Francisco 2026, so feel free to come talk to use if you are interested in joining the team.
- Program Systems Associate: Build and maintain MATS’ internal infrastructure, including databases, data collection forms, and integrations. Refactor legacy systems and collaborate across teams to improve infrastructure and establish best practices. Create ambitious, shared infrastructure for the AI safety talent ecosystem. Requires strong database design skills and a product mindset; software engineering or LLM-assisted coding proficiency preferred.
- Program Talent Manager: Own MATS’ full applicant process across 3+ high-volume cycles per year (100+ fellows, 50+ mentors per cohort). Interface with mentors at Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and other organizations to understand talent needs. Design applications, coordinate evaluations, manage reviewers, and prepare applicant shortlists. Develop outreach strategy to attract top talent. Requires strong judgment in evaluating technical/policy candidates and excellent project/stakeholder management; recruiting or structured evaluation experience preferred.

Joseph Lemien 22 Jan 2026 2:54 UTC
14 points
3 ∶ 1
on: Why I Steal (Ideas) and You Should Too
I’ve seen so many scenarios in which EA folks reinvent wheels that are already very well-established in the broader professional world, or in which people rely on networks of EAs for advice rather than asking a subject matter expert. I’ve mostly seen this in relation to hiring because that is an area that I’ve seen internal processes for a few different EA organizations.
More broadly and more informally I’ve seen people failed to train new managers and fail to adopt project management practices (or to even be aware that they exist). One person mentioned to me that the Project Management Institute sounded fake. I have the vague impression that a lot of people understand project management to be something like “putting tasks in a list and then ticking them off,” and simply aren’t aware of earned value management, risk management, quality control, and other major areas.
This is vague and handwavy, but it does seem to resonate with a general tendency toward insularity: rather than ask a consultant with many years of experience who is an expert in an area, EAs seem to be happy to ask a friend who has two years of work experience and who did a thing once fairly well.

Joseph Lemien 14 Dec 2025 17:53 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Charlie_Guthmann’s comment on: Charles_Guthmann’s Shortform
I’m curious how easy or hard it is to set up some drop shipping. A few items (t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, caps) with a few choices of designs might be feasible, much like the Shrimp Welfare Project Shop, or the DFTBA shop.

Joseph Lemien 11 Dec 2025 17:09 UTC
11 points
1 ∶ 1
on: Joseph Lemien’s Shortform
A semi-regular reminder that anybody who wants to join EA (or EA adjacent) online book clubs, I’m your guy.
Copying from a previous post:
I run some online book clubs, some of which are explicitly EA and some of which are EA-adjacent: one on China as it relates to EA, one on professional development for EAs, and one on animal rights/welfare/advocacy. I don’t like self-promoting, but I figure I should post this at least once on the EA Forum so that people can find it if they search for “book club” or “reading group.” Details, including links for joining each of the book clubs, are in this Google Doc.
I want to emphasize that this isn’t funded through an organization, I’m not trying to get emails to put on a newsletter, and I’m not selling an online course or push people to buy a product. This is literally just online book clubs: we vote on books and have video chats to talk about books.

Joseph Lemien 11 Dec 2025 17:04 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What EA texts would you recommend reading?
You have the core ones, so I’ll a few that are slightly more peripheral.

Joseph Lemien 11 Dec 2025 17:01 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 0
on: What EA texts would you recommend reading?
Glad to see another reader here! You’ve got the core books. Previous posts on the EA Forum have explored similar things, specifically this infographic/poster, and this scraping of Goodreads. I’d broadly recommend skimming through the ‘books’ tag to see what else you turn up.

Writing About My Job: Research Manager

Joseph Lemien6 Oct 2025 15:16 UTC

33 points

1 comment6 min readEA link

Joseph Lemien 1 Oct 2025 15:19 UTC
4 points
4 ∶ 1
in reply to: ChanaMessinger’s comment on: ChanaMessinger’s Shortform
Would you be willing/able to share a bit more detail or context about this? I’m somewhat interested, but there isn’t enough information here for me to feel comfortable to step forward and raise my hand.

Joseph Lemien 30 Sep 2025 18:14 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Struggling to Transition into an EA-Aligned Job — Seeking Advice
If you want, I’d be happy to have a conversation, give you feedback, review your resume, etc. I’ve been involved in hiring for quite a few years, including at multiple EA organizations. I also know from personal experience how rough it is to send out many, many applications without success.
What links here?
- Aaron Gertler 🔸's comment on Struggling to Transition into an EA-Aligned Job — Seeking Advice by Taylor Grogan (14 Oct 2025 3:52 UTC; 6 points)

[Question] (More) recommendations for non-technical readings on AI?

Joseph Lemien25 Sep 2025 1:12 UTC

9 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

Joseph Lemien 14 Jul 2025 15:58 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Did You (or someone you know) got rejected from “EA roles”, gathered experience/skills in for-profit, later transitioned into a high impact role?
I got two out of three, if that is enough. I worked in for-profit organizations for several years, developing various professionally-relevant skills and interests. Then I later learned about EA and was able to use my non-EA background to get employment at what I view as fairly high impact organizations. I’ve also applied to many roles and been rejected (both within EA and outside of EA).

Joseph Lemien 11 Jul 2025 14:54 UTC
6 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Benevolent_Rain’s comment on: Ulrik Horn’s Quick takes
I read the book a while back and I enjoyed it. It was kind of fun to get some juicy details about bad things inside Facebook. My main takeaway was something along the lines of “a fish rots from the head.” Leaders of an organization set priorities, direction, culture (to a great extent), and this books served as sort of a case study of leadership that has a fairly narrow focus. Poor social skills and poor common sense, entitlement, and the general idea that you get everything you want all stood out to me. The levels of sycophancy and self-interest were a bit surprising, but not terribly so.
Trying to apply ideas from this book to an EA context involves a bit of contortion, but in a sense I think that I’m not too concerned. The culture/values of EA tend to have a very different focus than Facebook did/does, and the leaders of the organizations often^[1] tend to have better common sense than what was displayed in Careless People. I would find it hard to imagine most senior leaders at EA orgs throwing fits because of a McDonald’s meal or aggressively pushing for the promotion of their personal projects using company resources. If anything, the book left me thinking that EA orgs will probably avoid many of the issues described in Careless People due to the focus on ethics and morality.
1. ^
  This is certainly not always true, and the level of common sense or general knowledge is noticeably lower than I would like. I’ve seen many people with very little or very narrow life experience ask about or propose things that I found silly or poorly considered. But my impression is that this is an eye-catching minority, and it is much more common for organizations to have leadership teams are more mature.

Joseph Lemien 29 Jun 2025 17:46 UTC
8 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: MildAbandon’s comment on: Who Are Your EA Role Models?
show me your role models who have directly improved the world
This somewhat related to mainanence and operations and how credit/respect is apportioned, but often the people doing the work are lower level employees who aren’t famous or well-known. They aren’t necessarily acknowledged at an annual organizational celebration, or in the local media. As an example, we might think that Rob Mather is great for founding/running the Against Malaria Foundation, but we don’t know the names of the people who manufactured or delivered those anti-malaria bednets.
But here are some examples of people that I sort of, vaguely ^[1] consider moral role models:
- There is a guy in Oakland, California who goes by PengWeather online, and he cleans up trash in his free time. From an EA perspective we could certainly criticize his actions by claiming that they aren’t effective, and that it might be better for the world if he instead donated $20 a week for a high-impact cause area. But I take inspiration from his initiative: he saw a problem, nobody was doing anything about it, so he decided to take action and make things better. People in EA talk about agency a lot, but it is rare that I see somebody doing things on their own.
- Esther Duflo. She is somewhat of a celebrity among people who care about development economics, but she is also a doer. She (and the teams of people she worked with) discovered what was an wasn’t effective in a variety of situations, improving the popularity and visibility of using randomized control trials for economic field research.
- Jeff Kaufman. I’ve never met him, but he chose to earn to give, and boy did he give! He has a blog, and he posts on the EA forum as well.
1. ^
  Generally I don’t really have role models. I’ve seen enough people express good traits and bad traits that I try to focus on specific behaviors/actions rather than on people as a whole. Think of all the people who work in virtuous fields/vocations who are also real assholes.
  For example, Jeff Kaufman seems like a great guy from what I’ve read. But imagine that he has really bad emotional regulation, or he is really rude to strangers, or he isn’t considerate to others, or he is a compulsive liar. If any of those things were true, that wouldn’t change the fact that his earning to give is admirable. I try to not boil people down to a simple god/bad judgement, and instead look at people as a collection of their actions.

Joseph Lemien 29 Jun 2025 17:21 UTC
5 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: MildAbandon’s comment on: Who Are Your EA Role Models?
the suggested role models are all thinkers rather than doers
At least some of the people listed are either doers, or are a sort of combination of thinkers and doers. I’m do view these people mostly as thinkers, but I also have a sort of bias in that I didn’t know about Hans Rosling in the 80s or about Paul Farmers work in the 90s. These people have done much more than simply give talks and write blog posts; they have also done things to directly improve the world.
Some of the people on the list
- Changed their careers in order to generate more donations for the global poor (Holden Karnofsky)
- Founded/created/ran organizations (William MacAskill)
- Volunteered at a hospital in Haiti (Paul Farmer)
- Counselled and provided guidance/advice to many, many people (Julia Wise)
- Studied the outbreak of disease across multiple African countries and worked for Sweden’s International Development Agency (Hans Rosling)

Joseph Lemien

Writ­ing About My Job: Re­search Manager

[Question] (More) recom­men­da­tions for non-tech­ni­cal read­ings on AI?

Writing About My Job: Research Manager

[Question] (More) recommendations for non-technical readings on AI?