Senior Education Grantmaker

Grantmaking & Research:

• Lead rigorous investigations into education and human capital interventions, with a strong focus on LMICs
• Evaluate specific funding margins and organisations against Founders Pledge's bar for recommendation
• Produce clear, decision-relevant research outputs to inform member giving
• Make monthly, high-stakes grant recommendations, often involving significant uncertainty and trade-offs

Expanding the Frontier:

• Identify and assess novel or underexplored education interventions
• Support the launch of new approaches through active, early-stage grantmaking
• Fund both proven, cost-effective programs and high-risk, high-reward "big bets", including research

Methodology & Thought Leadership:

• Act as the internal owner of education and human capital methodology
• Define how education outcomes are measured, valued, and compared
• Maintain a strong evidence base while exercising judgement under uncertainty

Stakeholder Engagement:

• Work closely with internal colleagues and external partners to move opportunities to funding
• Engage with UHNW donors as the subject-matter expert—answering detailed questions about evidence, assumptions, and trade-offs

This role has moved more than $80 million to highly cost-effective opportunities in education over the past four years, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and will continue allocating similar amounts to improve education programs around the world, especially in the world's poorest countries, potentially impacting millions of children's lives.

• Relevant domain expertise in education, development economics, cognitive science, or monitoring & evaluation
• Ideally with up-to-date knowledge of cost-effective education interventions in LMICs
• Excellent analytical ability, including comfort with quantitative reasoning and modelling
• Clear, concise writing, able to communicate complex evidence and uncertainty effectively
• Open-ended research skills, including identifying promising interventions, literature, and expert inputs
• Good calibration, with a strong sense of what you know, what you don't, and how confident to be
• Intellectual curiosity and openness, including willingness to change your mind when evidence demands it
• Strong judgement and prioritisation, especially under time pressure
• High ownership and independence, with the confidence to lead your own research agenda
• Collaborative working style, with openness to feedback and direct communication
• Comfort operating in a high-growth, mission-driven organisation with ambiguity

Salary: Up to £90k / $120k / €100k, depending on location and experience

Travel: Occasional travel for team and global offsites (typically twice per year)

Flat structure and an opportunity to help shape the future of philanthropy

Equal opportunity employer that values diversity and different perspectives

Inclusive and diverse workplace where everyone can do their best work

Founders Pledge's mission is to empower entrepreneurs to do immense good by providing end-to-end giving infrastructure, pioneering research, and access to a worldwide network of experts to help tech leaders become strategic philanthropists, having raised over $10 billion for the most impactful social causes since 2015.