SPAR Research Manager

Help SPAR’s mentors become excellent research leads.

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.

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis.

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

SPAR is a remote, part-time fellowship that runs twice a year, with 800+ mentees, 250+ mentors, and 6,000+ applicants in the latest cohort. Many of our mentors are early-career researchers leading a team for the first time, and the quality of their mentorship shapes what hundreds of mentees learn and produce each round.

We’re looking for a Research Manager to be a mentor to our mentors. You’ll work with the researchers leading SPAR projects, helping them run their teams well, handle difficult situations, and get their work in front of the right audiences. You’ll work closely with SPAR’s program lead, and there’s room to take on broader ownership of how SPAR supports its mentors.

What You’ll Do

• Support mentors across the round. You’ll be the main point of contact for a portfolio of mentors. You’ll check in with them regularly and help them scope projects, set expectations with mentees, and keep their teams on track.

• Help first-time mentors become strong research leads. Many SPAR mentors are leading a team for the first time. You’ll coach them on running effective meetings, giving feedback, and managing mentees with very different levels of experience.

• Handle sensitive team situations. When a team runs into conflict, a mentee stops showing up, or a mentor relationship breaks down, you’ll step in, work out what’s going on, and help everyone find a way forward.

• Advise on research outputs. You’ll help mentors and their teams decide where and how to share their work, including which publications, workshops, and conference venues suit their results.

• Help shape how SPAR works with mentors. You’ll contribute to how we recruit, onboard, and support mentors, and help raise the bar on research quality across the program as SPAR grows.

What you won’t do. With 250+ mentors and 800+ mentees per round, you won’t supervise individual projects in depth or co-author the research. Your impact comes from making mentors better at leading their teams, so more of their projects succeed.

Who You Are

• Solid research experience. You’ve done substantial research yourself, such as a PhD, a research role, or several completed projects. You understand how research projects go well and badly, and mentors take your advice seriously.

• Strong interpersonal judgment. You handle delicate conversations with tact, and people come to you when things are going wrong.

• A clear communicator. You write and speak clearly, and you can give direct feedback in a way people can act on.

• Organized. You’ll support many mentors at once during the round, often against hard deadlines. You keep careful track of commitments and follow through on them.

• AI safety context. You’re familiar with the AI safety ecosystem and its major research agendas, and you can engage with mentors doing both technical and policy research. You don’t need to be an expert on every agenda.

• Mission-aligned. You care about how AI development plays out, and you see SPAR as one of the most promising ways to grow the next generation of AI safety researchers.

While not required, we especially value:

• Experience mentoring or managing junior researchers, whether in a lab, an academic group, or a research fellowship like SPAR

• Publications at ML conferences or in AI policy venues

• Research experience in AI safety or AI governance

Why Work With Us

• You’ll be working toward reducing risks from advanced AI, potentially the most important challenge of our time. SPAR shapes who becomes an AI safety researcher and how well they learn to do research.

• SPAR already has a strong brand, a robust mentor and mentee pipeline, and working relationships with most of the top AI safety orgs.

• 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.

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

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis.

1. Application form (10–20 mins)

2. Take-home assignment (2–4 hours, paid)

3. Interview (45 mins)

4. Reference checks

5. Work trial (3 days, paid)

6. 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 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.

Compensation: $105K – $200K • Multiple Ranges

• Most locations (baseline) • $105K – $145K
• London, DC, Boston, NYC • $130K – $180K
• San Francisco Bay Area • $145K – $200K

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