Givewell·4 months ago
GiveWell is a research organization that identifies and funds cost-effective giving opportunities, focusing on global health and well-being. Our work is funded by tens of thousands of donors who rely on our research to inform their giving. We’ve grown from directing $1.5 million in 2010 to directing nearly $400 million in 2024.
As a Research Analyst on GiveWell's Commons team, you will support our broader research team in identifying cost-effective giving opportunities. Your work will contribute to GiveWell’s decisions about how hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent to save and improve the lives of people living in the lowest-income communities in the world. You will also play a key role in fulfilling our commitment to transparency and ensuring that the work we produce is accurate and high quality.
You will contribute to our work in a variety of ways, including:
Why this role may not be the right fit
We want to be transparent about what this position entails so you can make an informed decision about whether it's right for you:
If this sounds exciting to you—if you want to spend at least a year becoming excellent at rigorous vetting work and gaining familiarity with the fundamentals of GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness analyses—then this role could be a great fit. But if you're primarily motivated by strategic influence, specialization, or project ownership, you might want to wait for a more senior opportunity.
Our research team is organized into subteams that each focus on a specific area of our grantmaking (malaria, water quality, vaccinations, etc.). The Commons team is external to these subteams; we provide shared and flexible research capacity so we can direct our effort toward the highest priority areas at a given time. As a Research Analyst on the Commons team, you will have opportunities to learn about and contribute to investigations across research subteams, giving you a breadth of knowledge about GiveWell's work.
You may also have opportunities to temporarily embed in a subteam for the duration of a grant investigation or other project. During these periods, in addition to the research work noted above, you may be asked to help with the project management of research investigations, which can include tasks like maintaining our information management systems, keeping track of progress and checking in with relevant stakeholders as needed, scheduling and taking notes during calls with external contacts, and generally driving our investigations forward.
In some cases, we expect that Research Analysts who are excelling in their role will be embedded permanently in a grantmaking subteam.
Team: You’ll report to the Commons Lead or Commons Coordinator.
Compensation: We share upfront information about our compensation for every role. We set compensation based on internal leveling and external benchmarking, and we typically do not negotiate compensation at the offer stage.
Location: GiveWell staff primarily work remotely within the United States. GiveWell has offices in Oakland, California, Brooklyn, New York City, and London, UK which you are welcome but not required to work from.
Flexibility: We support and encourage flexible working, including flexible hours, working remotely, and working from the office when you choose. The majority of our staff, including senior management, work flexibly in one way or another.
Benefits: Our benefits include:
You can see our full list of benefits here.
Visa sponsorship: We are not currently able to sponsor visas for this role.
Travel: Every year, we host two Visit Week gatherings in our Oakland office, bringing together the entire GiveWell team. We also hold an annual retreat for our research department. We’ll expect you to attend each of those three gatherings, although we’ll offer some flexibility in the event of major conflicts or emergencies.
Start date: We’d like a candidate to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer.
We expect you will be characterized by most of the qualities listed below.
The ideal candidate for this position will possess most of the skills described above and will have at least a bachelor's degree and 1-5 years relevant experience. However, there is no such thing as a “perfect” candidate. If you are on the fence about applying because you are unsure whether you are qualified, we would strongly encourage you to apply.
After the initial application, our application process uses a mixture of interviews and work trials, which are anonymized before grading. We pay a flat rate for our work trials, beginning with the longer vetting assignment.
The work trials in our process allow us to better understand how applicants’ skills will translate to the work we do and allows you to learn more about our work. They also reduce bias in our hiring process — we’re better able to hire candidates with nontraditional backgrounds who nonetheless excel in our trials.
Our process is as follows:
You will receive communication about whether you are advancing after each stage of the process. We strive to respond to all applications within two weeks across all stages of the process; however, we typically receive a large volume of applications and may not always be able to achieve our desired response times. Let us know if you have specific circumstances (e.g., a competing offer or tighter timeline) that could impact timing. We may be able to speed up our turnaround times to accommodate your needs.
If you have questions about the process before you begin, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].
AI note: We're exploring ways to use AI to improve the efficiency and quality of our team's work, and if you join GiveWell, you'll be encouraged to help us continue our experimentation. However, AI use is not permitted in all work trials. We state in each application stage whether or not AI use is permitted. In the cases where we restrict AI use in the application process, our goal is to get good information about each applicant's skills so that we can form a clear picture of the strengths you would bring to your work on our team.
GiveWell is dedicated to finding and funding outstanding giving opportunities in global health and development, sharing the full details of our analysis with everyone for free. Our giving funds enable donors to contribute to the most impactful and cost-effective programs our researchers identify.
Since 2007, we’ve directed over $2.6 billion to cost-effective programs and interventions. In the last two years, we’ve made more than $500 million in grants. GiveWell is one of the world’s largest private funders of global development efforts, and we estimate that the funding we’ve directed will save more than 340,000 lives.
GiveWell is most well-known for recommending a small number of Top Charities, which currently support seasonal malaria chemoprevention, antimalarial nets, vaccine incentivization, and vitamin A supplementation. However, most of our research capacity is devoted to finding cost-effective opportunities outside of those programs.
GiveWell grants have:
We never take for granted that GiveWell’s work is good for the world. We make our reasoning public and transparent so others can challenge it (sometimes we even pay people to point out our errors). We go to unusual lengths to check our assumptions and assess our impact, including funding research and external analysis to address our uncertainties and insisting that our grantees conduct rigorous monitoring and evaluation. We change our minds when the evidence demands it.
We don’t want to miss candidates that could do great things at GiveWell. Practically, that means a GiveWell staff member reviews every application carefully, considering the whole picture of your background and potential. If you’re on the fence about applying because you meet some but not 100% of our preferred qualifications (some studies suggest this hesitation is especially common for women and people of color), we encourage you to apply anyway.
GiveWell is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer by choice. At minimum, this means that we comply with all federal, state, and local EEO and employment laws. Beyond the requirements of those laws, we value our team’s diversity in all respects, and we desire to maintain a work environment free of harassment or discrimination—we want our team members to thrive at GiveWell. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, contact us at [email protected]. We will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
By submitting an application, you acknowledge that you have read and consent to GiveWell’s Privacy Statement for Applicants. By completing an application exercise, you acknowledge and assent to GiveWell’s Work Trial Policy.