Special Projects Associate

Special Projects Associate

The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a leading research and advocacy organization focused on mitigating societal-scale risks from AI. We address AI's toughest challenges through technical research, field-building initiatives, and policy engagement, along with our other organization, Center for AI Safety Action Fund.

The Special Projects Associate partners closely with the Executive Director and Managing Director to identify, evaluate, and launch new initiatives at the earliest stages of CAIS's project pipeline. You'll lead the full lifecycleinvestigating new opportunities, drafting clear project briefs, building timelines and budgets, and driving delivery through our project-management system. Along the way, you'll coordinate researchers, vendors, and other stakeholders, monitor risks, and keep leadership informed with crisp documentation and reporting. This hands-on role sits at CAIS's "discovery" frontier, turning ambitious AI-safety concepts into concrete results with speed, rigor, and constant attention to mission alignment.

AI-safety communication is at a genuine inflection point. AI safety videos, articles, and social posts are now reaching millions, and public curiosity is compounding by the week. CAIS aims to harness this surge by spinning up several high-leverage projects on an accelerated timeline.

Key Functions & Responsibilities :

• Partner with the Executive Director to generate and rapidly evaluate new project ideas.
• Conduct preliminary researchinterviews, literature reviews, competitive scansto define clear goals, scope, and success metrics.
• Work with the Managing Director to build detailed project plans (objectives, deliverables, timelines, resources, budgets).
• Independently ramp up in new domains by consulting experts and synthesizing available research and data.
• Own day-to-day execution, ensuring projects stay on scope, on time, and on budget.
• Monitor risks and obstacles; escalate critical issues to the Managing Director with recommended solutions.
• Maintain up-to-date project records in our project-management system, producing concise status reports for leadership.
• Stay agile when requirements changere-prioritizing tasks and adjusting timelines as needed.
• Coordinate smoothly with researchers, vendors, and other external partners to secure inputs and approvals.
• Track budgets and resource utilization, flagging variances early and aligning spending with CAIS's financial goals.
• Draft or review key communications (updates, launch materials, partner announcements) to ensure messaging is clear and mission-aligned.

Required Knowledge and Experience

$100,000 - $140,000 a year

Benefits : Health insurance for you and your dependents, 401K plan + 4% matching, unlimited PTO, lunch and dinner at the office, annual professional development stipend, access to some of the top talent working on technical and conceptual research in AI safety.

The Center for AI Safety is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, medical condition, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. In alignment with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment. If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact contact@safe.ai.