Open positions: 1on1 team

We’re looking for candidates to join our 1on1 team.

The 1on1 team at 80,000 Hours talks to people who want to have a positive impact in their work and helps them find career paths tackling the world’s most pressing problems. We’re keen to expand our team by hiring people who can help with at least one (and hopefully more!) of the following responsibilities:

• Advising: talking one-on-one to talented and altruistic applicants in order to help them find high-impact careers.
• Running our headhunting product: working with hiring managers at the most effective organisations to help them find exceptional employees.
• Improving our systems: building tech-based systems to support our team members.

If you think you’d be interested in taking on more than one of these duties, and enjoy wearing multiple hats in your job, we strongly encourage you to apply. The start dates of these roles are flexible, although we’re likely to prioritise candidates who can start sooner, all else equal.

These roles have starting salaries from £50,000 to £85,000 (depending on skills and experience) and are ideally London-based. We’re able to sponsor visa applications.

About 80,000 Hours

Our mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems by providing them with excellent support, advice, and resources on how to do so. We’re also one of the largest sources introducing people to the effective altruism community, which we helped found. Since 2011, we’ve had over 10 million visitors to our website (with over 100,000 hours of reading time per year) and thousands of people have told us they’ve significantly changed their career plans as the result of our work.

The 1on1 team at 80,000 Hours takes people from being “interested in the ideas and wanting to help” to “actually working to solve pressing world problems.” In 2022, we had more than 5,500 applications to speak with us from talented and altruistic people who weren’t sure how to use their skills to help the world. Some of the most important ways our conversations help people increase their impact are:

• Introductions to experts in relevant fields, as well as to hiring managers
• Talking through and reframing decisions in order to pin down people’s key uncertainties about their careers
• Suggesting new ideas — whether that’s specific jobs, new paths to explore, or ways of getting funding

We directly help hiring managers at organisations tackling the world’s most pressing problems by using our unique network to find and recommend talented and altruistic candidates, often for their highest priority roles. If you’re interested in examples of people our 1on1 team has helped, you can find their stories on our website. Thanks for considering joining our team!

Open position: Advisor

The role

It’s a great sign you’d enjoy being an 80,000 Hours advisor if you’ve enjoyed managing, mentoring, or teaching. We’ve found that experience with coaching is not necessary — backgrounds in a range of fields like medicine, research, management consulting, and more have helped our advisors become strong candidates for the role.

For example, Anemone Franz joined us after working as a clinical trial physician, Abigail Novick-Hoskin completed her PhD in Psychology, and Matt Reardon was previously a corporate lawyer. But it’s also particularly useful for us to have a broad range of experience on the team, so we’re excited to hear from people with all kinds of backgrounds.

The core of this role is having one-on-one conversations with people to help them plan their careers, although we have a tight-knit, fast-paced team where people take on a variety of things. These include, for example, building networks and expertise in our priority paths, analysing data to improve our services, and writing posts for the 80,000 Hours website or the EA Forum.

We expect this role to be full-time and based out of our London office, although our remote work policy accommodates being away for up to three months of the year, if needed. If this won’t work for you, please let us know in your application.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for someone who has:

• A strong interest in effective altruism and longtermism
• Strong analytical skills, and would enjoy puzzling out the key considerations for a complex problem
• A deep interest in understanding people, and who would enjoy having large numbers of one-on-one conversations via video call
• The ability to rapidly learn and follow developments in the talent needs of nascent and fast-changing fields, especially AI safety
• Excellent professional communication and social skills

Previous experience in one of our priority areas would be a significant advantage in the role, but we encourage you to apply even without that.

What should candidates expect from the hiring process?

To apply, please complete the application form by 11PM GMT on Sunday, October 8, 2023.

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply as soon as you are able to.

The application process will vary depending on the candidate but will likely involve:

• A short screening call
• A ~2–4 hour work test
• An interview
• A 2–5 day in-person (if possible) work trial, if we think it’s 50% likely we’d offer you the role

If you’re not interested in the Advisor role, but would be interested to join the 1on1 team in some other capacity, we’re also looking to hire a Headhunting Lead and Systems Analyst.

Open Position: Headhunting Lead

The role

As Headhunting Lead, you would:

• Develop and lead a headhunting process that makes use of the unique network the 1on1 team has built to help fill roles working on some of the world’s most pressing problems (particularly in AI safety and policy, biosecurity, and global priorities research)
• Build strong working relationships with hiring managers and team leads at key organisations tackling these problems, as well as top candidates for these roles
• Lead the 1on1 team’s internal data strategy
• Coordinate with the 1on1 and Job Board teams to fill important openings and highlight these to promising candidates in our network

We expect headhunting positions to be full-time in-person roles based out of our London office, although our remote work policy accommodates being away for up to three months of the year, if needed. If this won’t work for you, please let us know in your application. You would be managed by Michelle Hutchinson, Director of 1on1.

What we’re looking for

We’d be most excited to hear from people who closely match the following:

• Enjoys working with different people in a variety of contexts, including maintaining relationships with major stakeholders, hiring managers, and promising candidates for top roles
• Thinks critically and communicates clearly about their plans and strategy, while prioritising what matters most
• Is comfortable approaching thorny, open-ended questions from multiple perspectives, moving between big picture thinking and getting stuck into the details of system and process design as the problem demands
• Has a strong understanding of 80,000 Hours’ focus areas, ideally including risks from advanced AI

In addition, we’d be especially excited to find someone who:

• Has experience in project management, research, or strategy — this could include roles in consulting, product management, or at early-stage startups or nonprofits
• Is fascinated by people and enjoys developing working models of individuals’ skills and traits to match them to specific roles
• Has experience with any of the following:
  • Longtermist and or existential risk strategy, particularly around talent allocation
  • Working with CRM and/or database software, such as Salesforce or Airtable

What should candidates expect from the hiring process?

To apply, please complete the application form by 11PM GMT on Sunday, October 8, 2023.

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply as soon as you are able to.

The application process will vary depending on the candidate but will likely involve:

• An interview (remote)
• A ~2 hour work test (remote)
• A 2–5 day trial (in-person if possible; for candidates with >50% chance of an offer)

If you’re not interested in the Headhunting Lead role, but would be interested to join the 1on1 team in some other capacity, we’re also looking to hire Advisors and a Systems Analyst.

Open Position: Systems Analyst

The role

As a Systems Analyst for the 1on1 team, your responsibilities could include:

• Building systems to enable new ways of delivering value to users
• Prioritising and implementing changes requested by staff
• Crafting automations to streamline internal and external processes
• Providing project management and operations assistance for 1on1 team priorities
• Analysing data to answer strategically relevant questions
• Hiring and managing contractors
• Salesforce administration

We expect to tailor the scope of this role to fit the successful candidate’s interests and strengths. We’re open to hiring someone full-time or part-time to work exclusively on systems, or to hiring someone to work part-time on systems and part-time on either advising or headhunting. A full-time systems role would likely include more project management and operational assistance work (e.g. coordinating with external stakeholders who give feedback on our advising calls), and may also provide systems support to other teams. We’re considering both London-based (preferred) and remote candidates for this role.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for someone who has:

• An operations mindset — you’re good at identifying issues, places for improvement, prioritising, generating solutions, and efficiently implementing new ideas
• Tech savviness and enthusiasm about experimenting with and learning new systems.
  • Programming experience may be helpful, but is not necessary

Experience in operations, IT, Salesforce administration, project management, or other relevant fields would be a bonus. However, a lack of experience shouldn’t discourage you from applying.

What should candidates expect from the hiring process?

To apply, please complete the application form by 11PM GMT on Sunday, October 8, 2023.

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply as soon as you are able to.

The application process may vary but will likely involve:

• A short screening call
• A ~1–3 hour work test
• An interview
• A 2–5 day in-person (if possible) work trial, if we think it’s 50% likely we’d offer you the role

If you’re not interested in the Systems Analyst role, but would be interested to join the 1on1 team in some other capacity, we’re also looking to hire Advisors and a Headhunting Lead.

Salaries

Salaries will vary based on your skills and experience, but to give a rough sense, a starting salary for a full-time position would range from ~£50,000-85,000 per year. For someone with five years of relevant experience, a starting salary would likely be in excess of £70,000 per year.

Benefits

Our benefits (prorated for part-time staff, where applicable) include:

• The option to use 10% of your work time for self development
• 25 days of paid holiday, plus bank holidays
• Standard UK pension, with 3% contribution from employer
• £5,000 mental health support allowance
• Private medical insurance
• Generous paid parental leave
• Long-term disability insurance
• Flexible work hours
• Gym, shower facilities, and free food provided at our London office.

Our remote work policy also accommodates being away for up to three months of the year, if needed, and we’re able to sponsor visa applications and cover many moving expenses.

The application process will vary depending on the candidate and the roles they’re interested in, but is likely to include a short chat with our staff, a work test, an interview, and a multi-day in-person trial. We offer payment for work samples and trials where possible (that is, conditional on your location and right to work in the UK).

For any questions or difficulties submitting the application form, reach out to [email protected].