Video Operations Associate/Specialist

About 80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours’ goal is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. After more than 10 years of research into dozens of problem areas, we’re putting most of our focus on helping people work on positively shaping the trajectory of AI, because we think it presents the most serious and urgent challenge that the world is facing right now.

We’ve had over 10 million readers on our website, have ~600,000 subscribers to our newsletter and have given one-on-one advice to over 6,000 people. We’ve also been one of the largest drivers of growth in the effective altruism community.

The role

This role would be great for building career capital in operations, especially if you could one day see yourself in a more senior operations role (e.g. specialising in a particular area, taking on management, or eventually being a Head of Operations or COO).

We plan to hire people at both the associate and specialist levels during this round. The associate role is a more junior position, and we expect to match candidates to the appropriate level as part of the application process so you don’t need to decide which one to apply for. To give an idea of how the roles might differ:

• Associates are more likely to focus on owning and implementing our processes, identifying improvements and optimisations, and will take on more complex projects over time.
• Specialists are more likely to manage larger areas of responsibility, oversee complex projects, and design new policies and systems.

Over time, there’s significant room to grow into a more ambitious version of the role, owning larger parts of the operations function for the video programme, developing new ideas, and building systems you can eventually hand off to others.

You’ll work closely with our video team to support the production, publishing, and performance of our video programme. Your responsibilities will likely include:

• Help draft emails (sometimes with LLMs) and manage inboxes for video team members.
• Make to-do lists from top priorities and manage follow-ups.
• Investigate YouTube trends and answer targeted research questions (e.g. “What types of titles or hooks are most effective for science channels?”).
• Analyse video performance and comments, sometimes using LLMs.
• Gather and format relevant metrics or data needed to make content and operational decisions.
• Research and compare vendors or tools, e.g. production studios, phones, or editing software.
• Help with networking (finding events, e.g. happy hours in San Francisco or YouTube conferences, applying for them if applicable, sending follow-ups to people we meet).
• Help drafting EOIs (expressions of interest) for scriptwriters, editors, and producers.

Who we’re looking for

We’re looking for people who are:

• Organised: you’re able to keep track of a large number of tasks at once, rarely drop balls, and follow through on your commitments. Experience managing projects is a bonus, but not essential.
• Detail-oriented: you’re excited about getting into the weeds of our policies and processes, identifying discrepancies, and making sure we don’t miss important details.
• Clear communicators: your communication is straightforward, you demonstrate a high level of reasoning transparency, and you enable others to easily identify the
• most important aspects of your communications.
• Good at making decisions under uncertainty: you’re able to weigh up tradeoffs between different options and make real-world decisions under uncertainty.
• Flexible: you’re excited about working on a variety of projects and are motivated to do what’s most valuable to push 80,000 Hours’ mission forward.
• Excited about supporting our mission: you’re enthusiastic about getting talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems.

Previous experience

At the associate level, previous experience is not required.

At the specialist level, candidates would ideally have at least two years of previous experience. This doesn’t have to be directly relevant to operations — it might be in another generalist role such as consulting, communications, project management, or community building.

Logistics

This is a full-time role, ideally based in the Bay Area and able to work sometimes from a Berkeley office. Visa sponsorship may be possible through our Employer of Record, though we can’t guarantee this. We’d also consider remote candidates who can work at least four hours per day between 9AM–6PM PDT.

The start date for this role is flexible. Ideally, our chosen candidate would start as soon as possible.

The video operations associate/specialist role will be managed by Chana Messinger.

Salary and benefits

The salary will vary based on skills and experience, but to give a rough sense, we expect starting salaries to be between $68,000–105,000 USD.

Our benefits include:

• 25 days of paid holiday, plus public holidays
• Private medical insurance
• Long-term disability insurance
• Pension scheme/retirement plan with employer contributions
• Up to 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave and childcare allowance for children under five
• £5,000 annual mental health support allowance
• £5,000 annual self-development budget
• The option to use 10% of your time for self-development

How to apply

To apply, please complete this application form by 11PM PT on Monday, September 1 2025. We expect the application to take approximately one hour to complete.

We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to apply for roles for which they meet many but not all the suggested attributes, and would especially like to encourage people from under-represented backgrounds to apply, even if you don’t meet all the suggested criteria.

The application process will vary depending on the candidate and role, but is likely to include 1–3 written work tests, an interview, and a multi-day in-person trial. We offer payment for work tests and trials, conditional on your location and right to work in the UK.