Head of Special Projects

About this role

Lead a new team with a broad mandate to pursue high-impact opportunities for the AI safety ecosystem, including one-off projects and Kairos’s next programs.

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

Kairos has historically made a small number of large, ongoing bets, like SPAR and Pathfinder. Running Generator taught us that this left a lot of value on the table. A surprising number of time-bound opportunities are worth pursuing, whether that’s an event, a one-off program, or a project that responds to a narrow window for impact, even when they don’t have a clean home elsewhere in the ecosystem. We’re starting a Special Projects team to go after them.

The team has a broad mandate and a large initial budget. You’d pursue high-impact opportunities as we find them, in talent work and beyond, running small and medium-sized projects that respond to what the ecosystem needs right now. Some will be short-lived by design. Others may prove out an idea that becomes a lasting Kairos program, the way Generator went from an idea to a 27-resident cohort at Constellation in a matter of months, and Talent Commons, our shared talent database, will likely become a core part of how Kairos, and much of the AI safety ecosystem, routes talent. It’d be up to you which projects you take on, and we expect many of the best ones to be ideas we haven’t had yet.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

- Own a small portfolio of early-stage bets. You’ll run one to three new projects at a time, taking each from concept to something operating in the world.

- Decide what we pursue. You’ll evaluate opportunities from across the team and the ecosystem, including your own ideas, make the case for which ones are worth attempting, and move fast when a window is closing.

- Scale what works, wind down what doesn’t. When a pilot succeeds, you’ll build the systems it needs to run reliably, then keep owning it or hand it to a long-term owner. When a project has run its course, you’ll close it out cleanly and carry the lessons into the next one.

- Grow the team around the work. As projects mature, you’ll likely hire people to run them and manage them as a small team.

- Contribute to Kairos more broadly. As bandwidth allows, you’ll help shape org-wide strategy, weigh in on new programs, and participate in cross-cutting work.

WHO YOU ARE

- Experience starting things. You’ve taken a program, an organization, a product, or a community from an idea to something up and running.

- Quick to execute. Many of these opportunities are time-bound. You’re comfortable shipping in weeks rather than quarters and making calls with incomplete information.

- AI safety context. Choosing which bets deserve Kairos’s time requires a clear picture of what the ecosystem is missing. You should come with views of your own about what’s worth building.

- Comfortable with an evolving mandate. Your portfolio will change under you as projects launch, hand off, or wind down, and you should be happy working that way.

- Mission-aligned. You care deeply about reducing risks from advanced AI, and you see new programs like these as one of the most promising ways to fill the ecosystem’s gaps.

WHY WORK WITH US

- You’ll be working toward reducing risks from advanced AI, potentially the most important challenge of our time. The projects you start could become Kairos’s next core programs and address critical bottlenecks in AI safety.

- Few roles offer this much room to decide what you work on. You’ll shape the portfolio, and with it a meaningful part of Kairos’s direction.

- We’re building a world-class team, so you’ll be in good company. Work alongside people who’ve come to Kairos from METR, Coefficient Giving, Rethink Priorities, the UK AI Security Institute, and CEA who share your commitment to impact.

- Collaborate regularly with leading AI safety researchers, policy professionals, funders, and organizers.

WHAT WE OFFER

- Salary: $140,000–$195,000 (baseline), $175,000–$245,000 (supported hubs, like London, DC, Boston, and NYC), or $195,000–$270,000 (San Francisco Bay Area), depending on experience, with potential for additional compensation for exceptional candidates

- Location: This is a remote role. We provide access to office space in San Francisco, Berkeley, London, or Boston, with optional coworking elsewhere. If you work from an AI safety office in one of these…