Open Position on the Video Team: Operational Partner / Creative Operations Associate to Aric Floyd

About us

80,000 Hours helps people find careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems. Our AI in Context YouTube channel makes documentary-style videos about transformative AI — its implications, the risks (including existential risks), and what people can do about it. We’ve published three videos so far (all with 1M+ views), and we want to keep making excellent videos.

The role

Aric is responsible for a huge array of tasks: writing, communications, stakeholder management, research, outreach, title/thumbnail iteration, and more. This role aims to support and multiply his impact by focusing on these functions:

Writing partner, editor, and contributor

Our main bottleneck as a team is how many excellent scripts we can produce, and Aric is currently one of our primary scriptwriters. Aric does his best work when someone with deep context is right next to him or live on a call, able to give opinions about the script.

You’d give both synchronous and asynchronous substantive feedback on narrative and argument, read drafts with a viewer’s brain (“where would I click away? Where am I confused?”), push on story structure, challenge framing, bring references from other creators, and develop taste for the AI in Context style.

Ideally you’re deep enough in the material that you can write a rough version of a script section that Aric can react to. This means doing passes where you’re actually rewriting (not just commenting), drafting sections or transitions when Aric is stuck, researching and fact-checking claims, and pulling relevant quotes from interviews.

Project manager

Your job would be to hold the big picture while he focuses on the creative work. In practice, this could look like: “What’s your daily goal and how do we play the day from that?” “Are you avoiding any part of the writing?” “How did the last 15 minutes go?”

At a higher level: tracking progress against daily, weekly, and quarterly goals, maintaining a clear picture of the production timeline, and flagging early when deadlines look at risk.

Executive assistant and second brain work

In this role, you’d support Aric’s daily prioritisation and planning and surface action items. You’d keep track of all tasks and look for ones you can complete or draft yourself.

A key part of this role is eliciting Aric’s views and decisions live in meetings, and then turning that into follow through. You’ll be building a working model of how Aric thinks to be able to do work on his behalf.

You’ll help with a lot of communications: monitoring Slack and email for things Aric needs to respond to, drafting messages, and preparing stakeholder outreach (interview requests, review asks, approval follow-ups).

A key part of the role is to have enough context that you can always keep others updated on where Aric’s work is.

You might also do operational things like:

1. Communicating with contractors
2. Pulling together reference materials for a video
3. Compiling feedback from multiple sources
4. Updating project documents
5. Handling logistics for shoots and interviews.
6. Doing research to inform a decision

On weeks when Aric’s needs are lighter, you’d do other operational work with our video team, such as working on our video translations, developing our production processes, running viewer research, and sourcing contractors.

Note: the title is flexible. Also, if you are excited by the non-writing aspects of this role and not the writing, we encourage you to apply; we may be able to be somewhat flexible on the role description.

About the team

You’d be working with the video team within 80,000 Hours, currently four full-time people:

• Aric Floyd (Associate Video Producer) is our on-camera host and one of our primary scriptwriters, and the person you’d work with most closely. He has a background as an actor, and he’s the on-camera face of the channel as well as one of the creative engines behind our scripts.
• Phoebe Brooks (Video Production Specialist), based in London, has a background as a filmmaker. She leads on editing, production and post-production and is the creative lead on our current in-production video.
• Sage Bergerson (Video Operations Associate) keeps the operational side of the team running.
• Chana Messinger (Head of Video) leads the team.

We also work with many excellent contractors.

We’re a small team that works quickly to try to produce extremely high quality long-form videos about transformative AI and existential risk in a way that’s thoughtful and entertaining. We’ve had more quick success than we expected, and we want to keep aiming high. It’s a place where storytelling, impact-focus, and artistry all meet, and it’s often extremely fun. You can see us hard at work here.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for someone who has strengths in:

• Writing: Can write in both narrative- and explainer-style, with an eye towards things like voice, pacing and storytelling, and give excellent feedback on a script
• Project management and prioritisation: You’ll be helping Aric set priorities and plans to meet deadlines.
• Ability to get inside someone else’s head and surface their best thinking: Be able to understand what Aric wants from conversations and Slack, elicit his deeper thinking, and act on it.
• Communication: Clear, consistent communication will be key.
• Organization and reliability: There will be a lot of different things to track in the form of script progress, stakeholder timelines, communication threads, and daily logistics, and it will be important not to drop balls.
• Comfort with multiple plates spinning: Our video process can shift around a lot during production, and we’re looking for someone who can adapt quickly and juggle different projects and threads.
• Context on AI risk or ability to learn quickly: You don’t need to know about AI risk when you start, though it will help. More important is that you can acquire the basic understanding quickly through talking to people, watching videos, reading papers, etc.

Previous experience in chief-of-staff, writing, editing, project management, communications, or similar roles is a bonus, but what matters most is that you’re sharp, efficient, reliable, and care about doing good work.

Logistics

This is a full-time role based in the San Francisco Bay Area. You’d work from our Berkeley office alongside Aric and the rest of the video team. The salary range is $125,000–$145,000, depending on experience and fit.

This role reports to Chana Messinger (Head of Video) and supports Aric Floyd (Associate Video Producer).

We may not always be able to sponsor visas. More guidance here.

Benefits

Our US benefits include:

• 25 days of paid time off, plus nine US federal holidays, with unlimited rollover
• Medical coverage through Cigna for you and your dependents (including partner), 100% employer-paid
• Dental and vision insurance through Guardian, 100% employer-paid
• Long-term disability insurance, 100% employer-paid
• 401(k) with employer matching up to 2% of gross salary (after 3 months)
• Up to 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave and childcare allowance for children under five
• Up to 10 days of paid sick leave per year, in addition to PTO
• $5,000 annual mental health support allowance
• $5,000 annual self-development budget
• Equipment provided (laptop, monitors, standing desk, etc.) and coworking space access if remote
• The option to use 10% of your time for self-development

How to apply

To apply, please complete this application form by 11:00 PM PT on Monday, May 25, 2026.

The assessment process will vary depending on the roles you selected, but will include two rounds of work tests, an interview, and a full day or multi-day assessment. We pay for work tests and the full/multi-day assessment, conditional on location and right to work in the country where you are taking the assessment. If we are unable to compensate you, we offer donations in lieu of payment to an effective charity of your choice.

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.