For readers/prospective applicants: I just want to chime in here and say that I also really loved my time working at BERI. The org has very "The Little Engine That Could" energy. Everyone in the BERI ecosystem is extremely smart, motivated, and creative solution-seeking. I didn't overlap with Elizabeth on staff, but have interacted with her a little bit the past few years in my capacity as advisor to the board. She strikes me as incredibly driven and capable, and I suspect she'll be a great coworker for the person who takes this role, especially given her enthusiasm for small-team settings. This is a really exciting opportunity for an ops champ who wants to make an impact in a small crucial niche, so I just wanted to echo Elizabeth's encouragement for people to err on the side of applying if uncertain!
BERI is Hiring: My Experience as Deputy Director and Why You Should Apply
This post will provide prospective applicants with an overview of what my time as BERI’s Deputy Director has been like and what I’ve loved about working at BERI.
This is BERI's second "core" hire in the past 5 years. While we have numerous other employees and contractors, they are all embedded at various research groups that we support and do not play a role in running BERI as an organization.
This opportunity is likely a good fit for someone who is early- to mid-career with experience and interest in operations, strategy, and relationship building. While we spent a lot of time on the job description, this role can be somewhat tailored to a new hire’s strengths and preferences.
Other Notes
Applications are due by November 17th
I’ll be at EAG Boston, so feel free to connect with me on Swapcard if you’d like to chat more about this role or anything else related to BERI or x-risk
We are offering a $2,000 referral award to anyone who refers a candidate that we ultimately end up hiring
Our Info page (our new website is still under development!)
What I Actually Do as Deputy Director
We obsessively track our time at BERI, so I looked at how my time has been spent over the past 12 months (I’ve worked as DD for 18 months now). Below is a summary of my time allocations, as well as my initial thoughts about how this might be similar or different for a new DD.
35% - Direct support of our university collaborations
This includes check-in calls, running hiring rounds, processing payments and reimbursements, purchasing, and more.
I would expect this number to be between 30% and 40% for a new DD.
23% - General management and admin
This includes meetings with our ED (we have ~daily check-ins), strategic planning, preparing for board meetings, project management, etc.
I would expect this number to be much higher for the first six months for a new DD given that most onboarding will fall into this category, but would expect this to stay ~25% longer-term.
15% - Finance
This includes credit card approvals, budgeting, runway calculations, annual audit preparation, etc.
I came into this role with a strong finance and accounting background and thus took on much more accounting responsibility than originally anticipated. I expect this number could range from 5% to 20% for a new DD depending on their background.
8% - External Communications
This includes writing our annual report, blog posts, Forum posts, website maintenance, etc.
I was surprised to see this number this high, but writing is something that we take seriously at BERI (even a short blog post will often go through 3-4 rounds of editing before posting), so this number actually does make sense.
I would expect a new DD to spend 5-10% of their time on external communications.
5% - Professional Development
This includes time spent reading newsletters, attending conferences and seminars, and other upskilling activities.
I would expect this to be ~10% for a new DD’s first year, especially if they are new to x-risk and/or accounting.
14% - Everything else
This includes HR, fundraising, special projects, travel, and more.
Things I Love About This Role and BERI
Every week is different.
I would say work at BERI is split 50/50 between the planned and unplanned
50% of our time is spent working towards known deadlines (such as fundraising proposals, monthly accounting processes, board meetings, etc.)
50% of our time is spent either responding to new requests from collaborators, developing new ideas, or working through the “we should do this one day” tasks and projects that accumulate over time
As seen from the time allocations above, this role covers a very broad range of tasks and responsibilities
It’s very rare that I spend more than half a day working on a single project
I’ve had 80 different time entries over the past two weeks, ranging in duration from 1 minute to 2.5 hours
I’ve personally loved this variability and thrive in this kind of work environment
We genuinely work with some of the best people
I think this is my favorite thing about working at BERI
I am constantly amazed at the caliber of people that we work with, and have been genuinely inspired by so many of them
Everyone (like, literally everyone) we work with is just so…nice
Ultimately our work centers around helping people
I like to describe BERI as being a catalyst
It’s a truly great feeling to be able to tell someone “yes, we can do that”
We have numerous examples of projects that wouldn’t have happened without BERI’s support
Tl;dr: Working as DD at BERI has been a joy for myriad reasons, and I’m so excited to find a new DD who can help me carry this work forward.
This is the third in a sequence of posts taken from my recent report: Why Did Environmentalism Become Partisan?
Summary
Rising partisanship did not make environmentalism more popular or politically effective. Instead, it saw flat or falling overall public opinion, fewer major legislative achievements, and fluctuating executive actions.
Public Opinion...
This post presents the executive summary from Giving What We Can’s impact evaluation for 2025. At the end of this post we share links to more information, including the full report and...
For readers/prospective applicants: I just want to chime in here and say that I also really loved my time working at BERI. The org has very "The Little Engine That Could" energy. Everyone in the BERI ecosystem is extremely smart, motivated, and creative solution-seeking. I didn't overlap with Elizabeth on staff, but have interacted with her a little bit the past few years in my capacity as advisor to the board. She strikes me as incredibly driven and capable, and I suspect she'll be a great coworker for the person who takes this role, especially given her enthusiasm for small-team settings. This is a really exciting opportunity for an ops champ who wants to make an impact in a small crucial niche, so I just wanted to echo Elizabeth's encouragement for people to err on the side of applying if uncertain!