Work with us

Open roles

Expression of Interest: Director of Operations

We are currently seeking expressions of interest for a The Center on Long-term Risk will soon be recruiting for a Director of Operations. The role is to lead our 2-person operations team, handling challenges across areas such as HR, finance, compliance and recruitment.

For more details and to make a submission, see here. The deadline for submissions is the end of Sunday 11th February.

Edit: The deadline for expressions of interest to be considered in our initial round has now passed. You're still welcome to submit expressions of interset, but we will only invite late submissions to join the immediate hiring round in exceptional cases. If we decide to proceed to a full hiring round in April 2024, we'll take another look at all new expressions of interest at that stage.

General application

We usually run hiring rounds for specific positions. There are currently no ongoing hiring rounds, but we would love to hear from you if you would be excited to contribute to our mission. In that case,  simply fill out our general application form. We particularly encourage applications from women and minority candidates. Please contact us at info@longtermrisk.org if you have any questions about working with us.

Why work at CLR

CLR’s mission is to reduce worst-case risks from the development of advanced AI systems. We are the largest organisation focussed on s-risk reduction, with our researchers being among only a few working on s-risk reduction and cooperative AI.

We aim to combine the best aspects of academic research (depth, scholarship, mentorship) with an altruistic mission to prevent negative future scenarios. So we leave out the less productive features of academia, such as precarious employment and publish-or-perish incentives, while adding a focus on impact and application.

As part of our team, you will enjoy:

  • a role tailored to your qualifications and strengths with ample intellectual freedom;
  • working towards a shared goal with dedicated and caring people;
  • an interdisciplinary research environment, with friendly and intellectually curious colleagues who will hold you to high standards and support you in your intellectual development;
  • mentorship in longtermist macrostrategy, especially from the perspective of preventing s-risks;
  • the support of a well-funded and well-networked longtermist EA organization with substantial operational assistance instead of administrative burdens.

You will advance neglected research to reduce the most severe risks to our civilization in the long-term future. CLR's activities include:

  • Technical interventions: We aim to develop and communicate insights about the safe development of artificial intelligence to the relevant stakeholders (e.g., AI developers, key organisations in the longtermist effective altruism community). We are in regular contact with leading AI labs and AI safety research nonprofits.
  • Research collaborations: CLR researchers have recently been involved in collaborations with researchers from CMU, Oxford, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and Google DeepMind.
  • Research community:  CLR runs an annual Summer Research Fellowship, during which the size of our team temporarily doubles as we focus on training and evaluating promising new researchers. We also run research retreats, bringing together members of the research community to co-ordinate and make progress on problems.
  • Grantmaking: In addition to the CLR Fund, some of our staff advise Polaris Ventures, a foundation committed to using all of its funds to improve the quality of life of future generations.
  • New projects: In collaboration with people in our network, we are always looking for novel impactful organizations to set up. For instance, CLR staff were founding members of the Cooperative AI Foundation.

CLR has received grants from Open Philanthropy, the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Polaris VenturesTestimonials about CLR’s work from prominent community members can be found here.

Diversity and equal opportunity employment: CLR is an equal opportunity employer, and we value diversity at our organization. We welcome applications from all sections of society and don’t want to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, social background/class, mental or physical health or disability, or any other basis for unreasonable discrimination, whether legally protected or not. If you're considering applying to a role and would like to discuss any personal needs that might require adjustments to our application process or workplace, please feel very free to contact us.

Benefits

In addition to their salary, CLR offers the following benefits to all staff (including Summer Research Fellows):

  • 25 days’ paid vacation per year, plus public holidays. (For temporary staff, this is reduced proportional to the length of your employment.)
  • Private health and travel insurance for permanent UK-based employees. We will also cover the full costs of health and dental insurance for any permanent US-based employees.
  • Pension scheme for those employed >3 months, with a default employer contribution of 10% of your qualifying earnings, increasing to 15% to match additional contributions made by you
  • Budgets of £5000 and £3000 per year respectively for health and professional development costs. (For temporary staff and less senior non-research staff, these are reduced to £2500 and £1500 respectively.)
  • Catered plant-based lunch available at the office every day
  • Flexible working hours
  • 20 weeks of paid leave for new parents, and consideration of childcare costs in setting salaries for permanent employees.
  • We will pay reasonable relocation costs for candidates who move to London to take up the role.