Program Coordinator, Main Program

About the organization

MATS finds and trains talented individuals for what we see as the world's most urgent and talent-constrained problem: reducing risks from unaligned artificial intelligence. We believe ambitious researchers from a variety of backgrounds have the potential to meaningfully contribute to alignment, control, security, and governance research. Through our research fellowship, we provide mentorship, training, professional network, and financial support to accelerate their careers and increase their impact.

Since 2021, we have trained over 630 researchers. 75% of pre-2026 fellows continue to work in AI alignment. 10% have co-founded organizations. Our fellows have produced 215+ research papers with 17,000+ citations. And we are just getting started: in the coming year we will expand our program to support even more researchers.

About the role

Every MATS cohort runs through the three-month Main Program, involving hundreds of fellows and mentors, a calendar of seminars and workshops, and a stream of information from many teams. As Program Coordinator for the Main Program, you will be the product owner for that whole experience, coordinating across vertical functions like admissions, research management, curriculum, and operations. Your job is to make the program feel coherent and high-quality to fellows and mentors, and internally legible to the team delivering it.

Concretely, you'll own program communications — mapping everything fellows and mentors need to know, consolidating it into clear and well-timed updates, and acting as the single person who catches conflicting messages. You'll be the interface with the teams that deliver program events — seminars and workshops owned by the research management team, community events owned by the community team, logistics owned by the operations team — keeping their schedules visible, ensuring their events are well-communicated to fellows and mentors, and surfacing feedback and conflicts back to them. You'll work with our dashboard and systems team to improve how fellows and mentors access information. And at the end of each cohort you'll help coordinate extension selection — the pipeline of applications, mentor evaluations, and committee inputs that determines which fellows receive extended support (senior staff make the evaluation decisions; you help make the process run flawlessly).

This is a coordination role, not a people-management role: you won't have direct reports, and the individual program elements stay owned by their teams. Your leverage comes from lateral coordination — being the person who knows everything that's going on, communicates it well, and keeps the pieces fitting together. We expect the role to be heavily AI-augmented — using tools like Claude to draft communications and timelines, organizing documentation so AI tools can work from it, and automating the execution side of the work so your time goes to judgment, taste, and relationships. You'll be measured on the experience of fellows and mentors, and on whether the team always knows what's going on.

What we're looking for

We welcome applications from strong project managers and communicators with a product mindset. You might be:

• A program or project coordinator from a fellowship, accelerator, university program, or fast-moving nonprofit who has kept a complex, multi-team program on the rails
• An operations or communications generalist from a startup who is fluent with AI tools and enjoys building systems that replace manual work
• An early-career product or chief-of-staff-type who excels at distilling messy information into clear priorities and coordinating work across teams they don't manage

If you don't match one of these profiles but can otherwise demonstrate that you'll excel in this role, we still encourage you to apply!

Key responsibilities

• Own fellow- and mentor-facing communications for the main program: map what needs communicating across the cohort lifecycle, consolidate it into a predictable and well-prioritized cadence, set reminders for what matters, and catch conflicts before they reach fellows
• Serve as the interface with the teams that own seminars, workshops, and community events (research management, community, and operations): keep the program calendar coherent, ensure events are well-communicated, and relay fellow and mentor feedback to the owning teams
• Coordinate the extension selection process each cohort: communicate policies, ensure applications and mentor evaluations come in on time, coordinate research managers and the selection committee, and ensure every fellow is evaluated
• Work with the MATS dashboard and systems team to improve how fellows and mentors access program information
• Own program documentation and handbooks
• Gather and act on fellow, mentor, and team feedback about the program experience
• Build AI-augmented workflows for drafting, documentation, and scheduling, and continually automate the execution side of the role
• Report to the Program Director (Juan Gil).
  
  

Essential qualifications and skills

• Strong project management ability across many threads, deadlines, and stakeholders
• Excellent written communication, especially distillation — leading with what matters and keeping detail accessible without overwhelming readers
• Strong lateral coordination: keeping work on track across teams you don't manage — easy to work with, proactive, and clear about who needs what by when
• Fluency with AI tools (e.g. Claude) for writing and workflow automation, or clear aptitude and enthusiasm to build it fast
• Highly conscientious and detail-oriented
• Alignment with our mission of reducing risk from the development of advanced AI

Desirable qualifications and skills

We expect especially strong applicants to have deep experience in at least one of the following areas:

• Running event or curriculum calendars (seminars, workshops, speaker series) with multiple owners
• Coordinating selection, admissions, or evaluation processes with hard deadlines
• Product ownership of an internal tool or user-facing experience
• Building automations or AI-assisted workflows for communications or operations
• The AI safety ecosystem and MATS-adjacent programs
  
  

About the Compensation

• Compensation range for this role is $150,000 to $180,000 per year for Bay Area-based hires, depending on qualifications and experience. The essential skills listed above contain the basic requirements, and align with the lower end of this range.
• MATS provides in-office, catered lunches and dinners to employees on workdays.
• Paid work trips, including staff retreats, business trips, and relevant conferences.
• Funding and support for professional development.
• 17 days of annual paid time off for Berkeley-based employees.
• Flexibility for hybrid work (but not for fully remote work).
• Collaborative and intellectually stimulating work environment.
• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance.
• Both Roth 401(k) and Traditional 401(k) for US-based employees.
  
  

Working hours and location

40 hours per week. Successful candidates can expect to spend most of their time working in person from our main office in Berkeley, California. We are open to hybrid working arrangements for exceptional candidates.

Note while applying

If you use an LLM chatbot or other AI tools in this application, please follow the norms here. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. MATS uses LLMs to help draft job descriptions, identify candidates to source, and transcribe interviews.

MATS is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment at the forefront of our field. We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds and experiences.

Join us in shaping the future of AI safety & security research!