Find a high-impact career
If you’re interested in one of our priority paths, we’d like to talk one-on-one. We’ve helped over 500 people choose where to focus, make connections, and find fulfilling jobs that tackle the world’s most important problems.
Due to high demand, you can’t apply directly right now. Join the waitlist and we’ll send you an invitation to apply as soon as possible.
We’re most able to help people who are interested in at least one of the priority paths that we describe in this article.
You don’t need to have chosen a path already — we can help you narrow them down, and compare these paths to your other options. If you’re already in a path, we can help you improve your chances of success.
Governments need to hire experts in AI and its social impact to safely manage this transition. We can help you develop relevant expertise, and find relevant jobs in the civil service, political parties, think tanks, scientific funding bodies, technology journalism, industry, and other areas – though we’re mostly focused on government positions. We can introduce you to mentors with backgrounds in the US and UK governments, and other people on this path. We’re most able to help people who are interested in working on reducing the long-term risks, rather than short-term challenges like automation and/or lethal autonomous weapons, and who have engaged with the arguments as outlined in Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom.
If you’re a good fit for one of these positions, then you can have a huge impact. We think top grantmakers working in effective altruism can create value equal to millions or even tens of millions of dollars per year in donations to top problem areas, making it one of the highest-impact positions right now.
Operations staff enable everyone else in the organisation to focus on their core tasks and maximise their productivity. They’re especially crucial for enabling an organisation to increase in scale.
As we’ve argued, these positions seem especially in-demand right now, both within the core effective altruism organisations and the broader global catastrophic risk community. There are many open positions and organisation leaders often say this skill-set is their biggest bottleneck.
Interested in a path not listed above?
We may still be able to help. Just explain why it’s higher-impact for you in the application form. We’re especially interested in any other paths that could have a big impact on any of our top recommended global problems.
How it works
1. Apply
It takes about 20 minutes to fill out the application form, which should also help you structure your thinking.
2.Prepare
If you’re accepted, we’ll send you a link to schedule your coaching session and guidance on how to prepare.
3.Have a 1:1 call
Your coaching session lasts about 45 minutes and usually takes place via video call.
4.Stay in touch
We’ll keep in touch with you and provide further assistance via email or additional calls.
Some people we've helped
Of the hundreds of people we’ve coached, 95% would recommend us to a friend and 76% said they changed their career plans to something higher impact.
Rosie CampbellAs a direct result of coaching, I found a role as Assistant Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley, where I will contribute to shaping provably beneficial AI.
Assistant Director
Center for Human-Compatible AI
Ethan PerezThe coaching team is incredibly well-researched and connected in AI safety. Their advice is far more insightful, personalized, and impact-focused than most of what I got from Google, self-reflection, or the peers or mentors I would typically go to.
Deep Learning Research Intern
MILA, Université de Montréal
Jessica AlmyA huge thank you for offering this service! University career counselors tend to focus on finding job listings, networking, and tweaking a resume -- but the big issues I was able to explore with 80,000 Hours were far more important to me in thinking about my career over the next 30 years.
Policy Director
The Good Food Institute
What is 80,000 Hours?
80,000 Hours is an independent non-profit that helps people lead fulfilling careers with a big social impact. Founded at the University of Oxford in 2011, we’ve done over five years of research on social impact career choice and coached hundreds of alumni of the world’s top universities. Our free career guide is read by more than a million people each year.
Our coaching team

Brenton Mayer
Brenton qualified as a doctor and worked in Australia and Fiji. He co-founded Effective Altruism Australia, a tax-deductible charity that has raised over $3 million for effective charities. He also co-founded the Run to Better Days, to promote effective development aid for people living in extreme poverty.
Specialities
- Biosecurity

Michelle Hutchinson
Michelle holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, where her thesis was on global priorities research. While completing that, she did the operational set-up of the Centre for Effective Altruism and then became Executive Director of Giving What We Can. She came to us fresh from setting up the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford.
Specialities
- Global priorities research
- Operations

Niel Bowerman
Niel was a co-founder of the Centre for Effective Altruism and previously served as Assistant Director at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He holds a PhD in physics from Oxford and has six years of experience in climate advocacy, during which he served on Barack Obama’s 2008 Environment Policy Team and worked as an advisor to the President of the Maldives.
Specialities
- US AI policy
How to apply
Due to high demand, we’re only able to work with a small fraction of people who apply.
We aim to work with the people who we can help have the greatest impact. This means we look for commitment to social impact, interest in our priority paths, and evidence you can excel in a priority path. You don’t need to meet all of the criteria, but they all help.
Commitment to social impact
The aim of 80,000 Hours is to have the biggest social impact we can. We look to work with people who make social impact one of their main career goals.
Prior involvement with the effective altruism community is helpful but not necessary. You should be familiar with the basic principles of social impact career choice as presented in our career guide. Ideally, you should have already tried to apply our more advanced research to your situation.
We take an analytical approach to social impact and career choice, and we’re most able to help people who do the same. We’ll look to see clear explanations of your plans, and how you hope to make an impact.
Interest in priority paths
We’re best able to help people who are interested in our priority paths. We’ll look for evidence of your interest in working in at least one of the priority paths listed above. We are keen to speak to people who have a strong existing commitment to a particular path, and also those who are at an earlier stage (e.g. considering one or more of these paths among several others).
In addition, we can often help people who are considering other paths within our top recommended problem areas, or even paths within completely different areas. If you want to work in a path that’s not listed above, please make sure your application demonstrates exceptional ability and includes a summary of the reasons why you think this is likely to be your highest-impact option.
Evidence you can excel in a priority path
Your application should provide evidence of past achievements and ability to excel in one of our priority paths, for example:
- You’ve completed a relevant side-project, such as volunteering or research.
- You excelled in your studies at one of the world’s top 20 universities.
- You previously worked in extremely competitive roles.
- You received awards, grants or fellowships.
- You co-founded a successful business or social initiative.
If you’re unsure, it doesn’t take long to apply. You can always apply again if your situation changes. Many people also say they find the application form helps them reflect on their plans.
We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and class can affect people’s willingness to call attention to their own achievements. We’d especially like to encourage people from under-represented backgrounds to apply.