The Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS) is a nonpartisan think tank that engages experts across the U.S., allied, and partner nations to deliver concrete, technically sound policy research. We believe that AI and AGI are poised to bring transformative change over the coming years, and want to play an active role in shaping its future. The Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS) is hiring a Senior Research Manager or Director of Research (depending on experience) for the following teams: AI Frontier Security Team and Compute Policy Team.
Key roles and responsibilities
As a Senior Research Manager or Director of Research, your key responsibilities would include:
- Managing research staff, including weekly 1-1 meetings, coaching, performance reviews, and career development support.
The current Frontier Security team is 6 FTE, and the current Compute Policy team includes 3 full-time researchers. We are actively hiring additional researchers.
We have a limit of 6 direct reports per manager to ensure high quality management. However, there may be research staff who are interested in managing a small number of direct reports (who would become your indirect reports), which we could lean on to open up your capacity as the team grows. - Encouraging a supportive and intellectually robust culture, which fosters constructive disagreement and trust within the team.
- Ensuring the high quality of research reports, rapid turnarounds, and outreach from the team – maintaining IAPS brand as a provider of trusted, technically grounded and non-partisan analysis.
- Direct review of team outputs would be a core part of your responsibilities. However, we have and expect to hire additional senior staff with varying specialities (including around policy engagement), in addition to a strong network of external experts, who can provide additional support with reviewing and socializing research.
- Project management of research efforts, including ensuring projects are delivered to time and quality, balancing capacity needs across the team and in response to new opportunities, managing contracts, running project retrospectives, and working with researchers and our Policy and Engagement team to ensure research efforts are followed through to policy impact.
- Strategic guidance to ensure project selection is driven by a deep understanding of recent AI developments, the largest AI-driven threats to security and innovation, and our team’s comparative advantages and expertise.
We don’t expect you to be an expert across the board, and your team can support you with a lot of relevant expertise. We also typically involve staff heavily in strategic decisions. However, we would expect you to bring enough broad understanding of the AI field to synthesize this information, provide thought leadership in your areas of expertise, and make strategic calls. - Conducting hiring and fundraising for new roles, including contributing a strong case for these roles to organization-level fundraising applications, and working with your team to apply for project-based funding opportunities where relevant. You would have substantial support from leadership on fundraising efforts and we don’t require prior fundraising experience.
- Outreach and relationship-building with key stakeholders, particularly in Washington DC. You would be a public face for your team.
Directors of Research are expected to have more experience, and provide a higher level of thought leadership, strategic guidance, and/or outreach and relationship-building.
Experience and skills expected of the post holder
All applicants should have:
- 6+ years research, policy or similar experience (this can be in industry, government, civil society or academia, and can include individual and management experience), with at least some of this experience related to AI or other emerging technologies
- Experience managing a team of research, policy, or technical staff
- A broad understanding of the AI policy field
Preferred but not required:
- Specialization in at least one area related to our work where you could provide substantive thought leadership. These areas include but are not limited to:
- Frontier Security: AI agents, cybersecurity, government procurement and acquisition processes, threat modeling, LLM development, and emerging technology R&D
- Compute Policy: AI policy, export controls, forecasting, information security, AI chip and semiconductor fabrication, and China’s indigenization efforts around AI
- Experience working in or advising the US government on technology or national security policy
We also encourage applicants with significantly more experience to apply! Our salary range is wide to accommodate experienced candidates, and we are also able to give more senior titles (e.g. Director of Research) to candidates if more commensurate with their experience.
Additionally, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t have experience in all the responsibilities listed under ‘Key Responsibilities’. We have several senior staff on the team who are able to support on many of these fronts, and are willing to invest in the development of an exceptional candidate.
Compensation
- Annual salary within the following range for a full-time position, prorated for part-time work: $111,000 – $220,000 USD (pre-tax)
- Compensation is not restricted to USD and will be paid in a candidate’s local currency after applying the appropriate exchange rate
- The exact salary will be based on the candidate’s prior relevant experience and location (candidates in DC and SF will receive relatively higher salaries), according to IAPS’s salary algorithm
Other Benefits:
- Comprehensive global benefits package, including fully paid health insurance
- Generous paid time off (PTO) leave and unpaid leave, including:
- Unlimited vacation with a minimum 30 days off per year (incl. public local holidays, vacation time, and “mandated” 3-weeks total mid- and end-year organization-wide breaks)
- Unlimited (within reason) personal and sick leave
- Parental leave – up to 6-9 months of a combination of paid and unpaid parental leave that can be taken prior to and/or during the first 2 years after a child’s birth or adoption
- Technology stipend of the equivalent of $2000 USD every 3 years that can be used to cover costs of purchasing work and office equipment
- Annual team retreat and other opportunities for fully paid travel of generally 1–2 weeks per trip, including stipends to help cover the cost of dependent care while traveling. (Note: travel is never required)
- We encourage proactive professional development and offer learning opportunities, including conferences and workshops. We also encourage staff to set aside 10% of work time dedicated to professional and personal development
Additional Information
- These roles are fully remote, and we are able to legally hire in most countries, and have staff in many timezones across the globe. However, we have a preference for this role to be located in DC or the San Francisco Bay Area, and candidates from these locations can expect to receive a higher salary to reflect the added value of in-person stakeholder outreach in these locations of interest to our organization.
- In certain cases, we may be able to provide visa sponsorship to the US or UK and help candidates relocate. If you have questions about whether we can hire or provide visa sponsorship in another country and if this will influence your decision about applying, please contact [email protected] before submitting your application.
- Hours: We are open to candidates who can commit to 20–40 hours per week, with 30+ hours preferred. Please note that the salary is based on a 40-hour workweek and will be prorated accordingly.
- Travel: This role has a lot of opportunities for business travel. However, all travel is optional and travel is not required to take this position. Trips are fully paid and may involve visits to Washington DC, San Francisco, London, one team retreat annually, and relevant conferences.
- Extension requests: We will try to accommodate extension requests that are made before the deadline and are up to three (3) days. We generally cannot accommodate extension requests made on or after the application deadline, or are longer than 3 days, and cannot accept late submissions to ensure fairness to other applicants.
- Language: Please submit all of your application materials in English and note that we require professional level English proficiency.