Head of Special Projects

Lead Kairos’s new team to turn promising ideas into new programs and shape which bets Kairos makes for the AI safety ecosystem.

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.

Applications are due by September 25, 2026. We’ll review applications after the deadline and get back to everyone shortly after.

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 400+ 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 $1.4M+ in funding 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

Kairos is a portfolio of programs, and we have more promising ideas than we have people to pursue them. We’re looking for a Head of Special Projects to take the strongest of those ideas from concept to running project, prove out the ones that work, and build lasting programs around them.

Several of our programs started like this. Generator went from an idea to a 27-resident cohort at Constellation in a matter of months, and Talent Commons, our shared talent database, will likely become a core part of how Kairos, and much of the AI safety ecosystem, routes talent. We hope this role will allow us to turn more of our ideas into impactful programs, which we can then spin out or roll into Kairos’s existing portfolio.

It’d be up to you what special projects you take on, but some ideas we’re weighing include earlier stages of our generalist pipeline that feed into Generator (such as an online version of the program), new workshop formats, and more shared infrastructure for the AI safety ecosystem along the lines of Talent Commons.

What You’ll Do

• Own a small portfolio of early-stage bets. You’ll run one to three new projects at a time, taking each from concept to something operating in the world.

• Decide what we pursue. You’ll evaluate ideas from across the team and the ecosystem, including your own, and make the case for which ones are worth attempting.

• Scale what works. When a pilot succeeds, you’ll build the systems it needs to run reliably, then keep owning it or hand it to a long-term owner.

• Grow the team around the work. As projects mature, you’ll likely hire people to run them and manage them as a small team.

• Contribute to Kairos more broadly. As bandwidth allows, you’ll help shape org-wide strategy, weigh in on new programs, and participate in cross-cutting work.

Who You Are

• Experience starting things. You’ve taken a program, an organization, a product, or a community from an idea to something up and running.

• AI safety context. Choosing which bets deserve Kairos’s time requires a clear picture of what the ecosystem is missing. You should come with views of your own about what’s worth building.

• Comfortable with an evolving mandate. Your portfolio will change under you as projects launch, hand off, or wind down, and you should be happy working that way.

• Mission-aligned. You care deeply about reducing risks from advanced AI, and you see new programs like these as one of the most promising ways to fill the ecosystem’s gaps.

Why Work With Us

• You’ll be working toward reducing risks from advanced AI, potentially the most important challenge of our time. The projects you start could become Kairos’s next core programs and address critical bottlenecks in AI safety.

• Few roles offer this much room to decide what you work on. You’ll shape the portfolio, and with it a meaningful part of Kairos’s direction.

• 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.

• Collaborate regularly with leading AI safety researchers, policy professionals, funders, and organizers.

What We Offer

• Salary: $140,000–$195,000 (baseline), $175,000–$245,000 (supported hubs, like London, DC, Boston, and NYC), or $195,000–$270,000 (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.

• 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).

• Visa sponsorship (particularly O-1) may be possible depending on circumstances, but we can’t guarantee it

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

Applications are due by September 25, 2026. We’ll review applications after the deadline and get back to everyone shortly after.

1. Application form (10–20 mins)

2. Screening call (15 mins)

3. Take-home assignment (1.5–3 hours, paid)

4. Interview (45 mins)

5. Reference checks

6. Work trial (3 days, paid)

7. 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.

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