Senior Programs and Strategy Manager

About Us

FAR.AI is a non-profit AI research institute dedicated to ensuring advanced AI is safe and beneficial for everyone. Our mission is to facilitate breakthrough AI safety research, advance global understanding of AI risks and solutions, and foster a coordinated global response.

Since our founding in July 2022, we've grown quickly to 30+ staff, producing 30 influential academic papers, and established the leading AI Safety events for research, and international cooperation. Our work is recognized globally, with publications at premier venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, and features in the Financial Times, Nature News, and MIT Technology Review.

We drive practical change through red-teaming with frontier model developers and government institutes. Additionally, we help steer and grow the AI safety field through developing research roadmaps with renowned researchers such as Yoshua Bengio, running FAR.Labs, an AI safety-focused co-working space in Berkeley housing 40 members, and supporting the community through targeted grants to technical researchers.

About the Role

FAR.AI is one of the best places in the world to shape the AI safety field through events. We have a large and growing budget dedicated to convening the field, and we are known for running some of the strongest technical AI safety events globally. Unlike most organizations, we have a deep in-house technical research team you can tap when designing agendas, vetting talks, or exploring new areas. Moreover, as a trusted, neutral third party in both research and events, our positioning in the ecosystem gives us the connections to create events that would be hard to craft otherwise. Our events don’t just showcase the field — they can also create new subfields and directly shape the research agenda.

As a Senior Programs and Strategy Manager, you will work to define the vision for our most important conferences and workshops. You will refine the strategy for our existing established events, designing agendas that bring together top researchers, and coordinating with program committees and partners. You will also work closely with FAR.AI‘s leadership to help decide which new areas deserve investment. FAR.AI events also feed into our grant-making and communications work, so you will work cross-functionally to determine not just what conversations happen today, but what projects get seeded for years to come. If you want to be at the center of technical AI safety research, then this is the role for you.

You will report to Lindsay Murachver, Head of Programs, with a dotted reporting line to our CEO.

Responsibilities

• Event Ideation: Identify and pitch new event ideas to drive forward progress in AI safety through catalyzing new subfields, coordinating core stakeholders, or reaching new, key audiences.

• Event Curation: Design the theory of change for our major conferences and workshops. Develop an agenda and curate speakers to implement this theory of change, including setting attendee metrics, and running the application and selection processes.

• Stakeholder Management: Oversee high-level stakeholder management across speakers, program committees, funders, and partners.

• On-Site Speaker Management: Own speaker, content, and agenda flow during events, making real-time calls on substitutions and/or adjustments.

• Post-Event Impact: Support communications and reports to extend the reach of event outcomes.

• Advance Our Mission Across FAR.AI: Connect events to FAR.AI’s broader field-building efforts, like FAR.Labs (local co-working space), communications, research, and grant-making.

Required Skills & Experiences

As a Senior Programs and Strategy Manager, you will have:

• Technical grounding: Either (a) substantial experience working alongside technical researchers, or (b) direct research experience (PhD/postdoc, or equivalent work) in a STEM field.

• Stakeholder management: Proven ability to work with high-status/technical stakeholders and manage complex relationships.

• Content judgment: Ability to identify what topics and conversations are most impactful in AI safety, either via (a) demonstrated skill identifying opportunities in comparable product/strategy roles, or (b) personal familiarity with AI safety.

• Management experience: Some experience managing people or teams. This can include voluntary experience (e.g. mentoring students, coordinating societies) or leading cross-functional projects.

• Mission alignment: Strong motivation to contribute to AI safety and the future of the field.

Nice-to-have

It would be advantageous to possess:

• Situational awareness: Existing context on the AI safety ecosystem, needs, and gaps. This could include familiarity with AI safety technical research or policy work, whether through prior work experience or study.

• Entrepreneurial experience: Starting new initiatives, or seeding programs.

• Technical conferences: Experience running or shaping academic conferences/workshops or similar technical events.

We are open to shaping this role to best fit candidates’ profiles. We encourage applications from individuals who may meet only one or two of the nice-to-have skills and experiences. We’re unsure if anyone in the world satisfies all three, but if you do, we’d love to hear from you.

Logistics

You will be a full-time employee of FAR.AI, a 501(c)(3) research non-profit.

• Location: Both remote (candidates who can work with significant overlap with PST timezone) and in-person (Berkeley, CA preferred) candidates are welcome.

• Hours: Full-time (40 hours per week). You’ll occasionally need to support events during evenings or weekends. The role also involves regular travel for events (approximately one trip per month, fully covered by FAR.AI).

• Compensation: $115,000 – $180,000 per year, depending on experience, technical background and location, with the potential for additional compensation for exceptional candidates. We will also pay for work-related travel and provide any necessary equipment. If you work from our Berkeley office, enjoy catered lunch and dinner on site.

• Hiring Process: Our hiring process includes an initial application review, calls with the hiring manager, and paid test tasks. Successful candidates will then have in-depth interviews with team members and may be invited to a full-day work trial, followed by reference checks.

If you have any questions about the role, please do get in touch at [email protected]. Otherwise, if you’re ready to apply, the best way to ensure a proper review of your qualifications is to submit your application via our online form. (Please do not send your resume via email — it will not impact our decision.) Thank you!