Research Analyst | Quorum

We have multiple open roles at the moment. Please submit an application for the role you feel you are the strongest fit for. You will have the opportunity to declare interest in other roles below, and we will consider your application for all the roles you express interest in.

About the role

We're a new AI safety organization called Quorum. Our mission is to advance research and public understanding of the safety and societal implications of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence. We run the Summit on Existential Security, the AI Horizons Forum and will be building a portfolio of events for the AI safety ecosystem.

Our events have a strong track record of impact by facilitating critical connections and strategic coordination among people working on AI safety. As a result of our events, attendees have founded new organizations, launched new research initiatives, expanded their teams, and secured funding for their projects. Attendees consistently report that the events are a better use of their time than the counterfactual, and senior figures in AI safety regularly pause their day-to-day work to participate.

We’re hiring a Research Analyst to help us advance our research programs, which combine research and analysis with event design: researching areas of AI safety and governance, working with partner organizations, designing and running surveys, and analyzing what our events achieve.

In this role, you would join an ambitious team scaling from a successful flagship event to a portfolio of high-impact convenings across multiple locations.

Responsibilities

Research and analysis

• Map the field for the areas our programs address: which issues are most consequential and time-sensitive, and which researchers, policymakers and practitioners are making significant contributions. This informs which topics we take on and who we invite.

• Research the problems a program addresses, such as the state of a policy debate, a technical subfield, or AI development in a particular country, and write it up to inform our work.

• Design and run structured surveys of expert views on how AI is developing, and analyze the results.

• Write reports and memos that draw on participants’ pre-reads, discussions at our events and the wider literature, for the team, our partners and, in some cases, publication.

Event strategy and ownership

• Work directly with key AI safety organizations to understand the context and the work they're doing.

• Use that understanding to design events: audience, format, and agenda, built around what would create the most value for that group.

• Lead on that event through to delivery, owning the project plan and budget, and making sure it meets its goals.

Attendee selection and strategy

• Coordinate with advisors and senior leadership to build invitation lists.

• Review admissions and make decisions about who should and shouldn’t be invited to our events.

• Build invitation or application forms, and manage the attendee database.

• Maintain relationships with stakeholders across the ecosystem to gather further input on invitations.

• Draft and send invitations, pre-event communications, and manage inbound attendee correspondence.

Content strategy and event design

• Design or support in designing schedules that maximize attendee value, balancing structured content with protected time for 1:1s and unstructured conversations.

• Identify and secure speakers, and shape talks towards what would be most valuable for the audience.

• Curate sessions from attendee-submitted memos.

Impact, feedback and strategy

• Design and run attendee surveys and user interviews to inform attendee strategy, content and event design, and analyze the results.

• Track impact metrics and analyze attendee, application and outcome data to assess what our events achieve and where they could improve.

• Contribute to team strategy, bringing proposals with clear recommendations.

Requirements

We require a bachelor's degree or higher, or a foreign equivalent, in a field that prepares you for the research and analysis this role involves. Relevant fields include:

• A quantitative field such as mathematics, statistics, economics or computer science.

• A field directly relevant to AI governance, such as public policy, international relations, or the study of a country central to AI development, such as Chinese studies.

• A field that equips you to reason rigorously about key questions in AI safety, such as philosophy, psychology or law.

About you

You might be a great fit if you:

• Have AI safety context (or are building it quickly). You understand the AI safety landscape, including the key actors, threat models, and subfields, well enough to make informed decisions about event content and admissions.

• Are analytical and quantitative. You can analyze data, understand complex concepts, and draw sound conclusions.

• Are a strong writer and communicator. You write clearly and can manage high-volume correspondence without dropping quality.

• Are organized and deliver reliably. You can hold a project plan together, keep track of the many moving parts of a project, and get things done under time pressure.

• Take ownership and are proactive. You investigate problems, propose solutions, and push things forward without waiting to be asked.

• Think holistically about event design. You consider how content, schedule, and attendee experience interact, and make downstream decisions that serve the high-level goals.

• Consistently produce high-quality work. You're energized by the responsibility of delivering events at a very high quality level that directly shape the field.

• Handle sensitive information with discretion. You understand that decisions about who's in the room are delicate, and you can weigh those trade-offs with tact, keep confidential information confidential, and handle selective calls diplomatically in any circumstance.

Role details and benefits

Reporting: You would report to our Executive Director, Amy Labenz.

Location: This role is remote, with a preference for candidates based in the SF Bay Area. We can provide a desk at Constellation. Our events run mostly in the Bay Area, with some in Washington DC and the UK, and you would travel to them regularly.

Compensation: $120,000–$138,000

These are set against a US medium-cost base and multiplied by a location factor: 1.385x in the SF Bay Area, 1.25x in Greater London or the Washington DC metro area, and 1.0x everywhere else.

Benefits: Benefits globally include private health insurance, a 10% employer retirement contribution, 25 days of paid vacation plus public holidays, time off in lieu for weekends worked at events, 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave, a $4,000 annual professional development allowance, the equipment you need to do your job, and more. In the US, we cover 100% of your health, dental and vision premiums, and the retirement contribution goes into a 401(k). Elsewhere, we provide the best private health insurance available locally.

Process

We expect the hiring process to include the following steps, subject to minor changes:

• Application

• Initial screen

• Short interview

• Work test

• Final interviews (2–3)

• Reference checks

We may also ask late-stage candidates to complete further work tests to assess role fit. We’ll ask candidates to start as soon as they’re available.

Contact [email protected] for any questions, accommodations, or more information.

Quorum is an AI safety organization that runs events to coordinate senior leaders in the AI safety field.