Head of Talent Operations

Job description

**Build the talent operations function that places early-career talent in high-impact AI safety roles.** ***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**](https://sparai.org): 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**](https://generatorresidency.org/): 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**](https://www.globalchallengesproject.org): 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**](https://pathfinder.kairos-project.org): 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 We’re looking for a Head of Talent Operations to build a new function at Kairos combining internal recruiting, ecosystem headhunting, and Talent Commons, our shared talent database for the AI safety ecosystem. You’d be the first person to own this function, reporting to Neav Topaz (co-director). The role starts by leading hiring across Kairos as the team doubles over the coming months, then expands into the broader ecosystem work as we grow. # What You’ll Do ## Kairos recruiting (your first priority) Kairos is scaling fast, and getting our own hires right is a top priority. - **Own Kairos’s hiring.** You’ll build and run processes for new roles, drawing on the same networks and judgment you’ll later use for external placement. - **Source and evaluate candidates.** You’ll manage screening, trial tasks, references, and offers across our many concurrent hiring rounds. - **Build hiring infrastructure.** You’ll set up the systems, templates, and rubrics that let Kairos run good hiring rounds without reinventing the process each time. ## Headhunting and talent placement Many promising people come through Kairos’s programs (SPAR, Pathfinder, GCP, and Generator), and a large part of the point is to prepare them for impactful careers. But we’re missing the crucial step of actually placing them in impactful jobs, and the broader ecosystem has the same gap, especially for early-career talent. - **Build relationships with hiring organizations** across the AI safety and policy ecosystem. - **Proactively match early-career people** from our programs and the broader network to open roles. - **Track placement outcomes** and use them to improve the matching process over time. - **Turn informal referral work into structured process**, so good matches don’t depend on whether someone thinks to ask Neav. ## Talent Commons Talent Commons is a shared, consent-based talent database for the AI safety ecosystem, letting organizations like MATS, Constellation, and BlueDot Impact surface leads across pipelines. - **Interface with partner organizations**, onboarding them and getting them actually using the platform. - **Shape product direction** as the platform develops. ## Across Kairos - **Work with Neav and Agus** on how the function evolves and when to hire into it. We expect this role to grow into a small team, likely in 2027. # Who You Are - **Judgment about people.** You’ll make consequential calls about who’s ready, where to place them, and how to structure the hiring and placement process as it scales. - **Relationship skills.** Headhunting runs on trust. Hiring organizations should learn that your referrals are worth acting on, and candidates and partner orgs should enjoy working with you. - **Systems skills.** Much of this function is making informal, relationship-dependent work reliable at scale. You should enjoy building the processes and tooling for it. - **Mission-aligned with context on AI safety.** You care deeply about making advanced AI go well and have enough context on the AI safety ecosystem to make good calls about who’s doing valuable work and where the bottlenecks are. ### While not required, we especially value: - Direct experience in talent placement, recruiting, or headhunting in AI safety or adjacent spaces - Experience with hiring, selection, or other processes involving high-stakes decisions about people - Existing relationships with organizations in the AI safety ecosystem # Why Work With Us - You’ll be working toward reducing risks from advanced AI, potentially the most important challenge of our time. Where you place people will directly affect whether organizations working on AI safety get the people they need. - There’s no existing playbook for this function. You’d be designing it and have strong ownership over a large aspect of Kairos’s direction. - You’ll build out Talent Operations and shape its strategy with Neav and Agus. - 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. 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 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](mailto:careers@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](https://kairos-project.org/referrals).