What should an experienced health economist learn before trying to work at GiveWell?

Hi all, hope you’re well!

I am a UK-based health economist with 15 years’ experience in private sector consultancy, mostly building cost-effectiveness models for health technology assessment. I am considering a move into a research role at an organization like GiveWell over the next 12-18 months, and I would like some advice on how I should prepare. This is with a goal to be a stronger applicant and, if I got the job, a more effective researcher from the get-go.

My work has mainly involved:

• analysing clinical trials and other data, including bayesian modeling
• performing evidence synthesis and indirect comparisons
• survival analyses
• eliciting expert opinion to drive assumptions/parameters
• making reasonable assumptions in the absence of good quality data
• categorizing and modeling uncertainty, including value of information analysis
• building decision analytic models in ultra rare disease where data is very sparse
• turning all of the above into something useful for decision-makers

I have a background in economics (BSc and MSc) and for the last 3-4 years have sat on the executive team of our practice. Most of my time is spent on leadership, strategic operations, innovation and commercial decisions rather than the hands-on work.

I’ve followed GiveWell’s work from a distance for over a decade and have considered applying a couple of times before. What held me back was GiveWell’s international hiring restrictions and the practicalities of a PT time zone. These barriers seem to have eased in recent years which is why I’m looking at the possibility more seriously. 

However, I'm conscious that there’ll be some important differences between being a health economist in an HTA/consultancy environment and being an effective and well-rounded GiveWell researcher. Some major gaps I suspect I have:

• Knowledge of development economics and global health outside the fairly narrow perspective you might get from working with pharmaceutical HTA
• Understanding (ground-level view) of how programmes are implemented in low- and middle-income countries, including health systems, supply chains, governments and NGOs
• Monitoring and evaluation of such programmes
• Thinking properly about counterfactual funding, room  for more funding, fungibility etc
• Handling data that’s much messier than clinical trial data
• Making decisions under much deeper levels of uncertainty than is typical in HTA (although this is a key interest of mine)
• Moral weights, and comparing different outcomes like mortality, morbidity and income directly. I am used to just mapping everything to a QALY 

But this list is mostly based on reading GiveWell's published work as an outsider, so I'm open to the idea that I'm focusing on the wrong things. I'd be grateful for views from people who know GiveWell's work well, have worked in similar research roles, or have made a similar transition. Some specific questions that come to mind:

1. What are the biggest blind spots someone with my background is likely to have?
2. Are there skills that experienced health economists (in HTA) might think are transferable but actually aren't super useful in this kind of work?
3. Any particular books, papers, courses or other content you'd recommend?
4. What is better learned by doing vs reading? If I freed up some time for one or two independent projects, what would be useful?
5. Is broad familiarity with global health and development more useful than developing deeper methods expertise in one or two areas?
6. Is there anything about doing research at GiveWell that is hard to appreciate from their published output alone?

Thanks for reading! And thank you in advance for any views you can offer