Chief of Staff, AI Alignment Foundation

We're hiring a Chief of Staff to expand the bandwidth of our Head of Research Partnerships and the broader AIAF team. You'll own the operational backbone of our external engagement - the CRM, the grant pipeline, the event calendar, and the thousand small pieces that turn relationships and opportunities into funded research.

This is a generalist role for someone scrappy, organized, and fast. You'll work directly with senior leadership and get exposure to the full stack of how a research nonprofit operates: fundraising, government proposals, academic partnerships, donor relations, and the alignment research community itself.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own CRM hygiene and pipeline management. Keep our partnerships, funder, and collaborator pipeline clean, current, and actionable. Surface what needs attention and when.
• Support grant applications end-to-end. Draft smaller applications (think SFF-scale and similar), serve as a reviewer and second set of eyes on larger ones, and handle the administrative load of grant reporting and compliance.
• Coordinate and attend events. Manage logistics for conferences, donor meetings, and workshops. Travel with the team to EA Global, AI safety events, DC meetings, and similar.
• Flex into proposal support. Help with the non-technical scaffolding of government proposals (budget templates, compliance documents, administrative exhibits). Most of this is filling things out correctly and on time, not writing technical content.
• Write clearly and often. Draft external communications, partner updates, event briefs, and internal memos.

ABOUT YOU

• You're organized by default. Your inbox, calendar, and task lists are where things get done, not where things go to die.
• You write well and quickly. You can turn a messy meeting into a clean summary and a scattered brief into a coherent application.
• You're high-responsiveness and low-ego. You dive into whatever needs doing - admin, legal, ops, logistics - and get it done without needing to be asked twice.
• You're genuinely interested in AI safety and the research we support. You don't need to be a researcher, but you should be able to follow a conversation about alignment work and represent it credibly to funders and partners.
• You're comfortable with ambiguity and move fast. This isn't a role where someone hands you a checklist every morning.

SUCCESS IN THIS ROLE LOOKS LIKE

• Our CRM is a source of truth, not a graveyard.
• Grant deadlines are hit early, not scrambled.
• The existing AIAF team operates with meaningfully more bandwidth because of the work you've absorbed.
• External partners and funders feel like they're working with a tight, professional organization.
• You're trusted to represent AIAF at events and in low-stakes external conversations within your first six months.

REQUIREMENTS

• 3+ years of work experience
• Excellent writing and written communication
• Strong operational instincts and project management skills
• Willingness and ability to travel regularly (domestic, occasionally international)
• Full-time availability

BONUS POINTS FOR

• Background or connection to the effective altruism / AI safety community
• Prior experience with CRM tools, grant writing, or nonprofit operations
• Sales, business development, or events background
• Technical background (CS, engineering, or similar) or fluency reading AI/ML research
• Experience with government or foundation grant applications

Salary range from $120k/year to $200k/year, depending on experience. We are prepared to offer a salary above this range for candidates who bring a particularly strong technical background.