Expression of interest: Writer and writer-researcher

About 80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours’ mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. Since being founded in 2011, we have helped:

• Popularise using your career to ambitiously pursue impact while thinking seriously about cause and intervention prioritisation
• Grow the fields of AI safety, AI governance, global catastrophic biological risk reduction, and global catastrophic risk reduction capacity building (among others)
• Fill hundreds of roles at many of the most impactful organisations tackling the worlds’ most pressing problems

Over a million people visit our website each year, and thousands of people have told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. Surveys conducted by our primary funder, Open Philanthropy, show that 80,000 Hours is one of the single biggest drivers of talent moving into work related to reducing global catastrophic risks.

Our most popular pieces are read by over 1,000 people each month, and they are among the most important ways we help people shift their careers towards higher-impact options.

The roles

We’re listing these roles together because there’s a lot of overlap in what they’ll focus on, and we suspect some of the same candidates could be strong fits for both.

The main difference is that the writer role focuses more on the craft of writing compelling and informative pieces for the audience, and the writer-researcher role focuses more on supporting the knowledge base that informs the pieces. The ability to write clearly is key to both roles.

As a writer, you would:

• Use interviews or research notes to write new articles for the 80,000 Hours website, e.g. new career reviews or profiles of top global problems
• Turn existing research content into more accessible and engaging pieces, e.g. putting together our problem profiles into a book
• Write substantive newsletters for an audience of 450,000 people
• Refine the presentation and framing of our content on central landing pages, e.g. our career reviews page
• Manage and edit external expert contributors to write articles
• Continually learn from analytics and user feedback what kinds of framings are most engaging

As a writer-researcher, you would:

• Research and help write new articles for the 80,000 Hours website, e.g. new career reviews
• Survey and interview experts in the issues we prioritise
• Write research notes for writers to turn into articles and newsletters
• Update or rewrite core articles with new information and resources, e.g. about rapidly evolving global problems
• Manage and edit external expert contributors to write articles

Types of pieces you might work on in either role include:

• Problem profiles, e.g. extreme risks from climate change
• Skills profiles, e.g. communicating ideas
• Career reviews, e.g. software engineering
• Newsletters, e.g. announcing our skills series
• Additions to our career guide, e.g. what makes for a dream job

For both roles, what you’d focus on will depend on your strengths and interests, as well as the needs of our audience. E.g. if you have a particular interest in writing about the skills most needed for pursuing a high-impact career, or in writing about a particular problem area (such as AI safety), you may be able to specialise in that!

Who we’re looking for

For both roles, we’re looking for:

• Strong knowledge of and commitment to the values of effective altruism and longtermism
• The ability to learn quickly and independently
• Excitement to work on whatever kinds of projects are highest priority in a fast-paced and highly collaborative environment
  • We are a small team trying to do difficult and ambitious things — this means we often pitch in on lots of aspects of one another’s work!
• A good fit with our cultural values

For the writer role we’re also looking for:

• An exceptional aptitude for — and ideally a track record of — writing compellingly. We want someone who can turn research notes or a brief into writing that is simultaneously interesting, easy to read, nuanced, precise, accurate, and clear – and maybe even funny.
  • Helpful backgrounds include journalism, blogging, nonfiction writing, podcasting, and creative writing

For the researcher role we’re looking for:

• An exceptional aptitude for — and ideally a track record of — generalist research and writing. We want someone who can figure out what’s true, what’s unknown, and what’s relevant for career decisions given a complex and changing situation with our top priority problems, often amidst expert disagreement.
  • Helpful backgrounds include think tanks, academic or nonprofit research, blogging, journalism, nonfiction writing, podcasting, surveys, or a background in a top problem area like catastrophic risks from AI.

We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to apply for roles. We’d like to especially encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply!

Salary, hours, location, and benefits

The salary will vary based on experience and the responsibilities you take on, but to give a rough sense, we’d expect the starting salary for someone in this position to be £60,000–70,000 per year plus benefits — and potentially more for someone exceptionally experienced. Our salaries are calculated according to a formula that is transparent to all primary staff at 80,000 Hours.

Staff can work flexible hours. We encourage staff to work whatever schedule (consistent with full time status) will allow them to be most personally effective.

We prefer people to work in-person in our London office if possible. We are open to remote work in some cases. We can sponsor visas.

The start date of the role is flexible, but we would expect you to start during 2024 and prefer you to start approximately as soon as you’re available.

Our benefits include:

• The option to use 10% of your time for self development
• 25 days of paid holiday, plus bank holidays
• Pension scheme / retirement plan with employer contributions
• Private medical insurance
• Long-term disability insurance
• Up to 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave
• Childcare allowance for children under 5
• Coverage of work-related expenses like travel to conferences and office equipment
• £5,000 annual mental health support allowance
• £5,000 annual self-development budget
• Shower facilities, a small gym, and free food provided at our London office

To express interest in the role, please fill in this form.