Generalist (SPAR)

Help run the largest AI safety research fellowship in the field, and help its mentees get the most out of it.

Note: This role description is a first draft. Scope, salary, and responsibilities may evolve, and we’ll keep you in the loop about any changes if you apply.

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis.

About Kairos

Kairos is a nonprofit accelerating talent into AI safety and policy. In just over two years, we’ve trained 1,200+ people through our flagship programs:

• SPAR: The largest AI safety research fellowship, with 800+ mentees per round mentored by researchers from Anthropic, Redwood Research, RAND, MIT, the UK AI Security Institute, and others.

• Generator Residency: In partnership with Constellation, a platform for generalist talent to pitch, build, and ship projects that build capacity and infrastructure across the AI safety ecosystem, with advisors from OpenAI, AI Futures Project, METR, and more.

• Global Challenges Project: A workshop series introducing promising students to careers in AI safety and biosecurity, run several times a year across Oxford, Boston, and Berkeley.

• Pathfinder Fellowship: Helping grow the global network of AI safety university groups from a few dozen to nearly 100, with $9.5M in funding over the next two years to support their work.

We see ourselves as a portfolio of highly impactful projects in a fast-evolving field. Over the next six months, we expect to double in size and launch several new initiatives addressing critical gaps in the ecosystem.

The Role

We’re looking for a Generalist to help run SPAR, our AI safety research fellowship. SPAR is a remote, part-time program that runs twice a year, with 800+ mentees, 250+ mentors, and 6,000+ applicants in the latest cohort.

The role combines operations with mentee support. You’ll keep each round running day to day, and you’ll help mentees engage with the big questions in AI safety.

What You’ll Do

• Keep the round running. You’ll handle scheduling, reminders, and communications with mentors and mentees, and keep track of the many deadlines and moving parts in each round.

• Support mentees. You’ll answer their questions in Slack and email, and you’ll run office hours, have 1:1 chats, and follow up when midterm feedback flags issues.

• Help mentees build AI safety context. You’ll own the goal of SPAR leaving mentees with a deeper understanding of AI safety, beyond project experience. You’ll try things, see what works, and scale what does.

• Get better signal on mentees. You’ll help us figure out who’s doing well, who’s promising, and who needs more support.

• Run programming and Demo Day. You’ll plan and deliver workshops and events for the cohort, and help run our end-of-round Demo Day, where teams present their research to the broader community.

• Pitch in on broader SPAR work. Depending on your interests, you might evaluate compute requests or community grants, help with recruiting and matching, or use AI tools to automate parts of how SPAR runs.

Who You Are

• Highly organized. SPAR has many overlapping workstreams and hard deadlines. You’ll need strong systems to keep track of the work.

• Responsive and reliable. Mentors and mentees depend on you to answer quickly and follow through. People trust that once something is with you, it’s handled.

• High agency. SPAR has a lot of moving parts, and we want someone who’ll proactively spot issues, run with them, and help push the program forward.

• Mission-aligned. You care about how AI development plays out, and you see SPAR as one of the most promising ways to support future AI safety researchers.

While not required, we especially value:

• Context on AI safety and the broader ecosystem, including the major orgs, research agendas, and open debates, enough to discuss them with mentees (research experience isn’t needed)

• Energy for lots of 1:1 conversations, and experience supporting people in a mentoring, advising, or community-building role

• Comfort with technical tools, such as using Claude Code or similar AI tools to automate workflows

Why Work With Us

• You’ll be working toward reducing risks from advanced AI, potentially the most important challenge of our time. SPAR shapes who becomes an AI safety researcher and what they work on.

• You’ll have high ownership from day one. We trust people to run with meaningful parts of the program, try new ideas, and take on more scope as they grow, and we’ll support you in building new skills along the way.

• You’ll be in regular contact with mentors and mentees across the ecosystem, giving you a strong launchpad for future program or research roles.

• SPAR already has a strong brand, a robust mentor and mentee pipeline, and working relationships with most of the top AI safety orgs.

• We’re building a world-class team, so you’ll be in good company. Work alongside people who’ve come to Kairos from METR, Coefficient Giving, Rethink Priorities, the UK AI Security Institute, and CEA who share your commitment to impact.

What We Offer

• Salary: $105,000–$145,000 (baseline), $130,000–$180,000 (supported hubs, like London, DC, Boston, and NYC), or $145,000–$200,000 (San Francisco Bay Area), depending on experience, with potential for additional compensation for exceptional candidates

• Location: This is a remote role. We provide access to office space in San Francisco, Berkeley, London, or Boston, with optional coworking elsewhere. If you work from an AI safety office in one of these cities, we cover food, lunches, and office expenses. If you work from home, we cover home office expenses.

• Benefits: Flexible working hours, highly competitive health insurance, dental and vision coverage, generous vacation policy, and professional development budget

• Team retreats: We host all-team retreats three times a year to connect in person, collaborate, and build team culture.

• Travel: Work-related travel and expenses covered.

Logistics

• Start date: Flexible, though we generally expect new hires to be able to start within a couple of months of applying

• Remote, with expected travel 3–6 times a year for conferences and events, predominantly in the US

• We’d also be happy for you to work out of any of the AI safety hubs in San Francisco, Berkeley, London, or Boston.

• We prefer candidates who can attend meetings in the ET time zone (though our team currently spans GMT-8 to GMT+1).

• Kairos is happy to sponsor visas to the US (typically H-1Bs or O-1As) and will likely be able to sponsor UK visas in the coming months. We can’t guarantee visa approvals, however.

Our Culture

We’re a small, high-trust team motivated by the urgent challenge of making advanced AI go well. We try hard to figure out where we’re wrong, which means we say uncomfortable things to each other and change our minds fairly often. We value collaborative truth-seeking, a scout mindset, agility, and an alliance mindset with the broader ecosystem.

We also believe meaningful work should be enjoyable. We support each other’s well-being, celebrate wins, and maintain a healthy sense of humor even when the work is hard.

Application Process

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis.

1. Application form (10–20 mins)

2. Take-home assignment (2–4 hours, paid)

3. Interview (45 mins)

4. Reference checks

5. Work trial (3 days, paid)

6. Offer

If you’re excited about this role but unsure whether you meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. If you’re interested in multiple roles, apply to the one that best fits your skills and interests, and note in your application the other roles that you’d like to be considered for.

Questions? Reach out at careers@kairos-project.org.

Know someone who might be a good fit? If your referral gets hired and completes two months with us, we’ll pay you a $10,000 referral bonus. Learn more here.