Project Development Lead
Take high-level goals and move them towards and through concrete plans.
FLF’s mission is to steer transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from extreme large-scale risks. FLF researches which organizations, projects, or fields would be most useful in steering technology towards benefiting humanity, and then works to help establish those structures. Some of our existing strategies for this include headhunting project leaders, soliciting targeted grant requests from organizations or individuals working in priority spaces , working to develop the
MVP of products ourselves or in concert with contractors, or our recent
AI for Human Reasoning fellowship. These culminate in incubating organizations that aim to achieve the outcomes we believe would be beneficial.
This would be a good role for you if you:
Are good at orienting to new spaces, and performing research to understand the status quo, unaddressed needs, and opportunities to engage with existing initiativesWant to scope plans to achieve ambitious, high-level goalsWould equally enjoy executing on others’ at FLF’s plans to achieve these goals as well as figuring out yourself what should happen next with an initiativeLike driving things forward and are outcome-oriented Enjoy working on both “moonshots” and concrete MVPs and are happy to work across multiple unrelated projectsAre comfortable outsourcing and managing contractors to increase productivity
Questions you would ask in this role:
What products / tools / technologies might be feasible to build and deploy? Given the relative difficulty of product/tool/tech adoption, and the tradeoffs with regard to impact, which should we prioritize?How can we get those built? Is this a company? A non-profit? Something we build internally?Do we have a clear enough idea of what to build that we can scope it out and commission the work? Or do we need to try building it ourselves first, or solicit ideas from the public via RFPs or find new people to explore work here via a fellowship?Which parts of this agenda will the market likely take care of?
Actions you would often be taking:
Sync with other FLF team members to understand our vision and theory of change for the areaBrainstorm / generate / solicit and research ideas for technologies / products / tools that could deliver on those visionsAnalyze the market, feasibility of ideas, and scope of work required to implementSync with the team to share and refine thinkingDepending on what products / tools / technologies seem most promising (if any), and how well-scoped the work is, make a plan to build in-house / recruit a team / post an RFP / run a fellowship, etc.Write two-pagers to keep the team informed and track the provenance of your beliefs
Outcomes you would be responsible for:
Exact outcomes dependent on what we discover as we explore these areas, but could include:A conclusion that the area is not currently feasible to make progress on, along with an explanation as to whyA fleshed-out spec for a product to address one of these areasA sketch of the kind of organization we want to create to tackle one of these areas, along with a plan for recruiting and funding the teamA well-run program chosen to address these areas
Logistics
* Location: We prefer people with 4+ overlapping work hours with US Central Time.
* (FLF is geographically dispersed, though with a particular presence in the Bay Area.)
* Evaluation Process (subject to change):
— Interview work test (30 minutes)
— Interview with one FLF staff member
— Paid contract work trial (3-10 hours)
— Interview(s) with other members of the FLF team
Miscellaneous
We encourage you to apply even if your background may not seem traditional for this role! We would rather review a larger pool of applications than risk missing out on a promising candidate for the position. If you have any questions about the role, please do get in touch at recruitment@flf.org.
We are committed to diversity and equal opportunity in all aspects of our hiring process. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We welcome and encourage all qualified candidates to apply for our open positions.
