Chief of Staff to Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness team
About Open Philanthropy
Open Philanthropy is a philanthropic funder and advisor; our mission is to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us. We stress openness to many possibilities and have chosen our focus areas based on importance, neglectedness, and tractability. Our current giving areas include potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, global health and development, scientific research, global public health policy, farm animal welfare, and biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. In 2024, we recommended $650 million to high-impact causes, and we’ve recommended over $3.9 billion in grants since our formation.
About the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team
The mission of the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness (BPP) team is to prevent catastrophic biological risks. We have deployed hundreds of millions of dollars, established several independent organizations, and believe our work has already substantially reduced some of the most catastrophic risks to humanity. We are building momentum to achieve even more in the coming years.
About the role
We are seeking a Chief of Staff to partner with Andrew Snyder-Beattie, who is the Program Director for the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team.
You would be at the center of the team's efforts to deploy tens of millions of dollars annually to reduce catastrophic biological risks, acting as a multiplier on the team's impact. You would serve as a trusted collaborator, helping prioritize tasks, owning key projects, and representing Andrew in meetings and communications.
Responsibilities will vary based on the candidate and evolve over time, but core duties will include:
Project management: Keeping team projects on track by helping to set the right goals, tracking progress, managing team meetings and meeting cadences, and experimenting with different workflows to ensure aggressive progress (including experimenting with integrating LLMs into workflows).
Team support: Working with Andrew to put the right people in the right roles, evaluating performance, making sure the team has the support they need, helping to grow the team, and generally being a sounding board and thought partner for the toughest problems.
Direct support: Ensuring that Andrew can focus on the areas of highest impact by ensuring he is spending his time on the right things and has momentum, e.g. by ruthlessly managing his task list, delegating and owning tasks, and generally being a source of positive energy.
Over time, exceptional hires could grow in various directions. This might include taking on a more “program deputy” or COO role to Andrew while managing a number of staff, leading ambitious special projects with a high degree of autonomy, and/or co-founding a spinout organization.
A typical “day in the life” might involve:
Joining a number of Andrew’s meetings (2-3 hours).
Reviewing meeting takeaways and determining appropriate next steps: what to delegate, what to track, and what requires follow-up. Prioritizing responsibilities and setting goals for the day.
Co-working with Andrew in the afternoon, including discussions of key decisions and challenges.
Focus time to push forward priority projects that you’re owning.
Who we’re looking for
A biology or biosecurity background is not required. Strong candidates could come from almost any background.
We expect the strongest candidates to have:
Clear communication. You avoid buzzwords and abstractions, and give concise arguments with transparent reasoning.
High agency. You will push to make the right things happen on large, unscoped projects, even if it requires doing something unusual, difficult, and/or schleppy.
High emotional intelligence. You have good judgment for people, a knack for navigating hard conversations, and an intuitive sense of who should be informed and consulted.
Support mindset. You are motivated and excited by amplifying Andrew’s output and saving him time.
A sense of urgency. We have a limited amount of time to get safeguards and defenses up, and you’ll run through walls to make this happen fast.
We also expect all staff to model our operating values of ownership, openness, calibration, and inclusiveness.
Role details & benefits
Compensation: The baseline compensation for this role is $184,092.80, which would be distributed as a base salary of $161,092.80 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $23,000.00 for U.S. hires.
Location: Given the collaborative nature of this role with Andrew, we require the Chief of Staff to be based in the Washington DC area.
We’ll support relocation costs for candidates not already based in the DC area.
We are happy to consider sponsoring U.S. work authorization. However, we don’t control who is and isn’t eligible for a visa and can’t guarantee visa approval.
Benefits: Our benefits package includes:
Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the U.S. for you and any eligible dependents) and an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement for certain other personal health expenses
Dental, vision, and life insurance for you and your family
Four weeks of PTO recommended per year
Four months of fully paid family leave
A generous and flexible expense policy — we encourage staff to expense the ergonomic equipment, software, and other services that they need to stay healthy and productive
A continual learning policy that encourages staff to spend time on professional development with related expenses covered
Support for remote work as needed
We can’t always provide every benefit we offer U.S. staff to international hires, but we’re working on it (and will usually provide cash equivalents of any benefits we can’t offer in your country)
We aim to employ people with many different experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds who share our passion for accomplishing as much good as we can. We are committed to creating an environment where all employees have the opportunity to succeed, and we do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.
If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact jobs@openphilanthropy.org.
Please apply by 11:59 pm (Pacific Time) on Sunday, March 30th to be considered.
