Generalist (Talent Ops)

Help get the people who come through Kairos’s programs into high-impact AI safety roles, as part of our new talent operations function.

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.

Update: We’ve updated this description to move recruiting out of this role and into a separateRecruiter role.

Applications are due by October 16, 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 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

Thousands of people apply to or take part in Kairos’s programs every year. Talent operations is our new function for identifying the most promising of these people, supporting them, connecting them to high-impact opportunities, and tracking where they end up. Getting people into impactful careers is much of why we run our programs, and there’s much more Kairos and the wider ecosystem can do to help, especially for early-career talent.

We’re looking for a generalist to do much of the hands-on work in this function, working alongside our Head of Talent Operations (a role we’re also hiring for) and making heavy use of Talent Commons, our shared, consent-based talent database for the AI safety ecosystem.

What You’ll Do

• Identify promising people. You’ll gather signals on standout participants, such as SPAR mentors’ views on their mentees and the GCP team’s picks after each workshop, and keep our records on people accurate and up to date, for example with current job histories.

• Support them. You’ll help connect top participants with good next steps during and after our programs, such as career advice, introductions to funders or other organizations, or visits to AI safety hubs.

• Make referrals. You’ll find strong candidates from our programs and network for open roles and fellowships across the ecosystem, as well as for our own programs, and get them in front of the people doing the selecting.

• Track outcomes. You’ll follow up on the referrals we make, find out which led to hires or acceptances, and feed what you learn back into how we match people.

• Pitch in on broader Kairos work as capacity allows. You’ll help on active programs like SPAR, Pathfinder, and Generator, build relationships across the AI safety ecosystem, and ship small cross-team projects.

Who You Are

• Mission-aligned with context on AI safety. You care deeply about making advanced AI go well, and you have enough context on the ecosystem to make good judgments about who’s promising, what work matters, and where Kairos should focus.

• Good with people. Candidates and hiring organizations should enjoy working with you and learn that your recommendations are worth acting on.

• You’re excited about helping people find the right roles, and you like getting to know people well enough to see where they’d do their best work.

• High agency and strong judgment. Deciding who to recommend for what is rarely clear-cut, and many of those decisions will be yours. You should be comfortable making them quickly and under uncertainty, and designing processes as you run them.

While not required, we especially value:

• Prior experience with recruiting, headhunting, or talent operations, particularly in AI safety or adjacent spaces

• Existing relationships across the AI safety ecosystem

• Experience as a generalist or early hire at a fast-growing org

• A track record of starting and shipping things independently

Why Work With Us

• You’ll be working toward reducing risks from advanced AI, potentially the most important challenge of our time.

• Talent operations is new at Kairos, and you’ll help shape what it becomes while getting people into impactful work they wouldn’t otherwise have found.

• 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: $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

Applications are due by October 16, 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 atcareers@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.