Senior Researcher

Summary

GiveWell is seeking exceptional Senior Researchers to help us direct hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the most cost-effective global health and poverty alleviation programs. As part of our lean research team, you will have an outsized influence on our funding decisions and help us save and improve lives on a global scale.

You’ll create and lead ambitious research agendas, answer complex questions, and inform high-impact grantmaking decisions by combining rigorous evidence review, cost-effectiveness modeling, and thoughtful judgment.

Some Senior Researchers may eventually choose to transition into an equivalently-leveled Senior Program Officer role to lead a large grantmaking portfolio, while others choose to stay focused on leading significant research agendas. We’re open to a wide variety of internal development options depending on your preferences and our needs.

The role

Senior Researchers are the intellectual leaders of GiveWell’s work. In this role, you’ll join a small senior team in setting ambitious research agendas, sifting through the countless questions we could try to answer and honing in on those that matter most. Your decisions will inform the allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars to dozens of grantees. You’ll also communicate externally about our work and mentor and advise other members of the team.

You will shape a research agenda that brings rigor and creativity to the thorniest questions GiveWell faces. You’ll execute that agenda by combining thorough review of empirical evidence, cost-effectiveness modeling, discussions with subject matter experts, understanding of the broader context, and your own judgment. In the course of your work, you might approach questions like these:

• What should we believe about the impacts of improved water quality on all-cause mortality?
• What is the impact of building footbridges in rural communities?
• How can we model the general equilibrium effects of cash transfers?
• How should we prioritize programs that reduce poverty relative to programs that reduce deaths?
• How should we think about the opportunity cost of other actors’ contributions to programs we fund?
• How should we account for high levels of uncertainty in our cost-effectiveness estimates?
• How do we use effects from trials conducted 30 to 40 years ago to predict impacts today?

After gaining experience on the team, Senior Researchers pursue a few pathways for career development based on their preferences and GiveWell’s needs. Some choose to develop wider and more autonomous research agendas as individual contributors, while others take on people management responsibilities. Another potential pathway is to transition into a Senior Program Officer role, which is a lateral move—we don’t conceptualize the Senior Researcher role as a training ground for program work. All of GiveWell's Senior Program Officers are also researchers with strong technical training and a penchant for sketching out a model when they’re not sure how to approach a problem.

Senior Program Officers typically own high-impact, cost-effective grantmaking portfolios by deepening their expertise, growing their networks, and understanding the broader context within a specific grantmaking area. They think through questions like:

• How should we balance exploring and seeding new, smaller opportunities with funding cost-effective