Generalist (Groups)

About this role

Join Kairos’s university groups team to support AI safety group organizers through the Pathfinder Fellowship and shape what Kairos does for university groups next.

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.

Applications are due by September 25, 2026. We’ll review applications after the deadline and get back to everyone shortly after.

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 https://sparai.org: 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 https://generatorresidency.org/: 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 https://www.globalchallengesproject.org: 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 https://pathfinder.kairos-project.org: 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

University groups are where many people first get involved in AI safety, and Kairos runs some of the ecosystem’s core infrastructure for them. Through the Pathfinder Fellowship https://pathfinder.kairos-project.org, we provide mentorship and funding to organizers of AI safety university groups around the world, and through OASIS we bring top organizers together for in-person workshops. Over the past year, this work has grown from a fraction of our time to one of our core priorities, and we’re now growing the team behind it.

We’re looking for a generalist to work across the whole area, including helping run the Pathfinder Fellowship, organizing in-person events, seeding new groups at universities we’re not yet reaching, and helping strong organizers transition into full-time work in AI safety. The exact shape of the role will evolve with your strengths and where we most need capacity.

We’re also weighing more ambitious bets for the program, like hiring full-time organizers at top groups, funding ambitious student-run events (symposiums, summer intensives), experimenting with radically different group formats, overhauling our organizer resource center, and giving the strongest groups much more hands-on support. You’d help shape which of these we pursue.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

- Help run the Pathfinder Fellowship. You’ll help onboard new groups and organizers, coordinate mentorship, handle communications with organizers and mentors, and process the grants that fund groups’ work.

- Help run in-person events. You’ll support the planning and logistics of OASIS, our workshop for top organizers at Constellation in Berkeley, and other events for organizers and students.

- Seed new groups. You’ll find and support founders at strong universities that don’t yet have an AI safety group.

- Help organizers go full-time. You’ll support the strongest organizers in moving into full-time work in AI safety, whether that’s continuing to organize or heading into research, policy, or operations.

- Build the systems behind the program. You’ll improve the infrastructure the Pathfinder Fellowship runs on (applications, grants, communications) and automate the work that shouldn’t be done by hand.

- Pitch in on broader Kairos work as capacity allows. You’ll help on active programs like SPAR, Generator, and the Global Challenges Project, build relationships across the AI safety ecosystem, and ship small cross-team projects.

WHO YOU ARE

- A past university AI safety group organizer. You’ve started or helped run an AI safety university group, and you know what organizers need because you’ve been one.

- Mission-aligned with context on AI safety. You care deeply about making advanced AI go well, and you have enough context on the ecosystem to make good judgments about which groups and organizers are promising and where to focus our support.

- High agency and able to figure things out. Much of this work won’t have a playbook. You’ll be designing processes as you run them and adjusting our approach as we learn what works.

- People-oriented. Most of the role is supporting organizers. You should be someone they enjoy working with, trust with hard questions, and come to when they’re stuck.

- Organized and on top of things. You keep careful track of to-dos and information. When you drop a ball, it’s on purpose.

- Strong writer and communicator. You’re clear and concise, and you think through your messaging from the reader’s perspective.

WHILE NOT REQUIRED, WE ESPECIALLY VALUE:

- Familiarity with Kairos’s university groups programs (for example, as a participant in the Pathfinder Fellowship or OASIS)

- Experience with event planning or community building

- A track record of starting and shipping things independently

WHY WORK WITH US

- You’ll be working toward reducing risks from advanced AI, potentially the most important challenge of our time. The groups you support are where many future AI safety and policy professionals get their start.

- University groups are a central part of Kairos’s strategy over the coming years, and you’d be joining the small team shaping how we scale that work.

- You’ll…