Summary
Our operations team exists to build the organisation and systems that keep 80,000 Hours on track to achieve our mission of getting talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems, especially on mitigating risks from advanced artificial intelligence.
We've grown to 35 staff, and we are looking for more operations generalists as well as an IT security and data privacy specialist to help us scale further by building and improving the internal systems we rely on, making 80,000 Hours a great place to work, hiring exceptional people, and supporting our ambitious goal of helping ensure artificial general intelligence (AGI) goes well. Over a million people visit our site each year, and thousands have changed their careers because of our work.
This hiring round is part of a coordinated effort to grow our operations function. We’re hiring for several specific roles across different teams, and while each has its own focus, the skill sets we’re looking for are largely overlapping, so we’re running a unified hiring round. We expect some candidates might not be sure exactly which role they’re best suited for, or may not fit neatly into a single category. That’s totally fine — we welcome generalist applications and may also hire people into roles that aren’t listed but align well with our needs.
If you’re not sure which specific role to apply for, you’re welcome to submit a general application to this operations generalist role, which is designed for candidates who are broadly interested in joining the operations team.
If you’d like to apply for a specific role, here are the positions we’re currently hiring for:
Location: London, England by default, but this depends on the role. We’re also open to remote candidates whose working hours overlap with the time zone of the team they’ll primarily be working with.
Salary: Approximately £41,000–£75,000 for the generalist roles, and approximately £55,000–80,000 for the IT security and data specialist role, depending on the position and your experience.
To apply, please complete this application form by 11PM BST (or 11PM PT for the video operations role) on Monday, September 1 2025.
About 80,000 Hours
80,000 Hours’ goal is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. After more than 10 years of research into dozens of problem areas, we’re putting most of our focus on helping people work on positively shaping the trajectory of AI, because we think it presents the most serious and urgent challenge that the world is facing right now.
We’ve had over 10 million readers on our website, have ~600,000 subscribers to our newsletter, and have given one-on-one advice to over 6,000 people. We’ve also been one of the largest drivers of growth in the effective altruism community.
The operations team oversees 80,000 Hours’ HR, recruiting, finances, governance operations, org-wide metrics, and office management, as well as much of our fundraising, tech systems, and team coordination.
Currently, the operations team has ten full-time staff and some part-time staff. We’re planning to significantly grow the size of our operations team this year to stay on track with our ambitious goals and support a growing team.
The roles
These roles would be great for building career capital in operations, especially if you could one day see yourself in a more senior operations role (e.g. specialising in a particular area, taking on management, or eventually being a Head of Operations or COO).
For the generalist roles, we plan to hire people at both the associate and specialist levels. Associate roles are more junior, and we expect to match candidates to the appropriate level as part of the application process so you don’t need to decide which one to apply for. To give an idea of how the roles might differ:
- Associates are more likely to focus on owning and implementing our processes, identifying improvements and optimisations, and will take on more complex projects over time.
- Specialists are more likely to manage larger areas of responsibility, oversee complex projects, and design new policies and systems.
The IT security and data privacy specialist role is more technical, and involves responsibilities such as evaluating and implementing security controls, managing data privacy compliance, reducing security risks, and overseeing security-related vendor management.
As we’re planning to make several hires, we’ll work with the chosen candidates to create a set of responsibilities that works well for each of them, so please still apply if you think only one or two things from the specific role descriptions linked above sound like a good fit for you — or if you generally think you’d be a good fit for the ops team.
Who we’re looking for
While the exact requirements vary depending on the role, we’re generally looking for people who are:
- Organised: you’re able to keep track of a large number of tasks at once, rarely drop balls, and follow through on your commitments. Experience managing projects is a bonus, but not essential.
- Detail-oriented: you’re excited about getting into the weeds of our policies and processes, identifying discrepancies, and making sure we don’t miss important details.
- Clear communicators: your communication is straightforward, you demonstrate a high level of reasoning transparency, and you enable others to easily identify the
most important aspects of your communications. - Good at making decisions under uncertainty: you’re able to weigh up tradeoffs between different options and make real-world decisions under uncertainty.
- Flexible: you’re excited about working on a variety of projects and are motivated to do what’s most valuable to push 80,000 Hours’ mission forward.
- Excited about supporting our mission: you’re enthusiastic about getting talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems.+
Additionally, for the IT security and data privacy specialist role, we’re looking for people who have:
- Experience with security tools and an understanding of data protection principles
- The ability to make sensible tradeoffs between security and usability
- Some technical skills (even if self-taught)
You can find more details in the job description for each role.
Logistics
These are full-time roles, preferably based in London, England, unless the specific role requires a different location. We can sponsor visas for UK-based roles and potentially (though not guaranteed) for US-based roles. We’d also consider remote candidates depending on whether their working hours overlap with the time zone of the team they’ll primarily be working with.
The start date for this role is flexible. Ideally, our chosen candidate would start as soon as possible.
Salary and benefits
The salary will vary based on skills and experience, but to give a rough sense, we expect starting salaries to be between £41,000–£75,000 for the generalist roles and £55,000–80,000 for the IT security and data specialist role.
Our benefits include:
- 25 days of paid holiday, plus public holidays
- Private medical insurance
- Long-term disability insurance
- Pension scheme/retirement plan with employer contributions
- Up to 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave and childcare allowance for children under five
- £5,000 annual mental health support allowance
- £5,000 annual self-development budget
- The option to use 10% of your time for self-development
- Gym, shower facilities, and unlimited free food provided at our London office
How to apply
To apply, please complete this application form by 11PM BST (or 11PM PT for the video operations role) on Monday, September 1 2025. We expect the application to take approximately one hour to complete.
We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to apply for roles for which they meet many but not all the suggested attributes, and would especially like to encourage people from under-represented backgrounds to apply, even if you don’t meet all the suggested criteria.
The application process will vary depending on the candidate and role, but is likely to include 1–3 written work tests, an interview, and a multi-day in-person trial. We offer payment for work tests and trials, conditional on your location and right to work in the UK.
