Open Contracting Position on the Video Team: Executive Assistant 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 hone our production.

The role

We’re looking for an executive assistant to work closely with Aric Floyd, our on-camera host and one of our primary scriptwriters, and help with the daily logistics of a fast-paced creative production environment.

The core of the job: working with Aric to support his prioritization, planning, and communication with the team. You’d be a force multiplier for someone whose highest-value work is scripting, filming, and storytelling. You’re also developing a deep sense of how Aric thinks and works so you can suggest improvements to his workflow and be increasingly helpful over time.

What you’d actually do

Daily priority planning: Each day (or more often as needed), compile a priority-ordered plan for Aric based on what’s happening across Slack, his calendar, the team standup doc, and any flagged items from his manager. The plan should read like a schedule for his day — time-blocked, with reasoning.

Make sure to grab any asks for him from Slack or email and flag them in priority order.

Reactive communication monitoring and drafting: Scan team channels and DMs for things Aric needs to respond to, questions directed at him, and threads where a status update would help. Draft messages in his voice that he can review, edit, and send.

Proactive communication: When Aric is working on a major project, be working closely enough with him that you can give updates to the team on how it’s going, what he’s done, and what he hasn’t done.

Light research, minimal editing of written and video content, admin as needed: Take on various tasks from Aric and other members of the team. This could include pulling together reference materials for a video, compiling feedback from multiple sources, updating project documents, or handling logistics for shoots and interviews. The specifics will shift with production cycles.

Depending on the fit, your interests, and your skillset, there could be opportunities for this role to grow to be a full-time role, or to incorporate more aspects of video production.

About the team

You’d be working with the video team within 80,000 Hours, which is 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

Must-haves:

• Strong judgment about priorities. You’ll be making calls about what matters most, often with incomplete information. The ideal candidate will be comfortable with uncertainty, learning through doing and getting feedback.
• Good written communication. You’ll be frequently drafting messages in someone else’s voice.
• High reliability and organisational skill. Being able to synthesise information from multiple channels and track tasks, projects, and deadlines.
• Adaptability and agility. Video production plans shift often. You’ll do best in this role if you have comfort with ambiguity and fast-moving contexts.
• Proactive, not reactive. The best version of this role is one where you’re catching things before anyone has to ask.
• You’re energized by making someone else more effective and from building a collaborative working relationship over time.
• Willingness to learn new skills and platforms. Our work covers a lot of different kinds of tasks and platforms, and we’ll need you to be able to put on lots of different hats.

Nice-to-haves:

• Strong LLM usage abilities. We use a lot of LLMs in our work and knowing how to use them well can be a big unlock.
• Data analysis. Not a requirement, but being able to support our metrics work would be great.
• Interest in AI and AI safety. You’ll absorb a lot of context about these topics through the work, and having context makes everything easier.
• Familiarity with Slack, Google Workspace, and Asana. These are our main tools.
• Experience drafting communications for someone else (ghostwriting, executive assistant or chief-of-staff work, etc.)

Logistics

This is a contract role at approximately 10–25 hours/week. The rate is $40–80/hour depending on experience. Working in the San Francisco Bay Area is preferred, but we’re open to remote candidates with significant overlap with Pacific time working hours.

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

Other roles you might be interested in (you’re welcome to apply to more than one):
If you’re a strong writer who’d want to contribute directly to scripts rather than support Aric on operations, take a look at our Writing Support role.

If you’d want to combine writing, project management, and executive support in a full-time, in-person Bay Area role, take a look at our Operational Partner role.

Note: If we successfully hire for the Executive Assistant role, we’d also be interested in hiring for a Writing Support role. If we successfully hire an Operational Partner, we’d be much less likely to hire for Writing Support or an Executive Assistant, since we’d expect that role to cover those functions.

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.