Senior Cross-Cutting Researcher

GiveWell

9d • Remote

About The Position

GiveWell is seeking exceptional Senior Researchers to join our Cross-Cutting team. This team is responsible for tackling thorny methodological questions, pressure-testing conclusions, and ensuring research quality as the organization scales. Researchers on this team will work on problems that span all of GiveWell's grantmaking areas, shaping how the organization thinks about cost-effectiveness, uncertainty, and impact. This role is ideal for researchers who thrive on variety and complexity, working on diverse problems such as developing frameworks for comparing different types of interventions, designing studies to assess the impact of past grants, and incorporating local insights into cost-effectiveness models. As part of the research team, individuals will have a significant influence on funding decisions and contribute to saving and improving lives globally.

Requirements

• Quantitatively-oriented advanced degrees and substantial relevant experience using empirical tools to make rigorous, evidence-based decisions in the real world.
• Typically 5-10 years of post-grad work experience.
• Consideration for applicants without advanced degrees but with commensurate relevant experience.
• Ability to thrive on variety and complexity.
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills.
• Ability to think critically and pressure-test conclusions.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to communicate confidence levels carefully and legibly.
• Ability to moderate directness and intensity when communicating with external parties.
• Ability to identify the most important questions to answer and go deep on details where they matter.
• Ability to reassess mental models based on learning.
• Ability to constantly assess whether one and the team are working on the most important things.
• Personal alignment with GiveWell's mission and methods.
• Abnormal curiosity and willingness to interrogate others' work and one's own.
• Appreciation for the value of an excellent reputation and strong relationships.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in global health and development research.
• Familiarity with cost-effectiveness analysis.
• Experience with program evaluation and M&E systems.
• Experience with forecasting and uncertainty analysis.
• Experience developing research infrastructure or training programs.
• Experience working in a remote or hybrid environment.
• Experience working with ultra-high-net-worth donors or advising on philanthropic decisions.

Responsibilities

• Shape and execute a research agenda that brings rigor and creativity to methodological questions across GiveWell's work.
• Address hard research questions, such as valuing different outcomes (death aversion, health improvement, income increase), estimating burden of disease with unreliable data, setting cost-effectiveness bars over time, advising donors on timing of giving, accounting for uncertainty in estimates, modeling spillover effects, and determining appropriate discount rates.
• Investigate unintended consequences of grantmaking, such as the diversion of healthcare workers from government systems.
• Conduct verification and learning activities, including assessing whether grants achieve predicted outcomes and learning from "lookbacks" on past grants to identify systematic errors in models.
• Identify and address potential issues like caseload inflation, unreliable data, and accuracy of program delivery.
• Systematically incorporate field insights, monitoring data, and external feedback into research.
• Determine which types of external feedback influence decision-making and identify research blind spots.
• Design Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) systems that accurately assess grant effectiveness.
• Evaluate the accuracy of forecasts and improve forecasting skills.
• Contribute to building research infrastructure, including training new researchers, exploring AI tools to improve efficiency, simplifying cost-effectiveness models, building field networks for ground truth data, and developing queryable databases for M&E data, burden estimates, and lookback findings.
• Collaborate with every team within GiveWell to spot inconsistencies in decision-making across areas and serve as an internal check on reasoning.
• Develop tools and processes to help the entire research team work faster without sacrificing rigor.
• Maintain research quality as GiveWell scales.

Benefits

• Fully funded health, dental, vision, and life insurance (100% of premiums covered in the US for employee and dependents).
• Four weeks of paid time off per year.
• 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave.
• Ergonomic home workstations or coworking space memberships.
• 403(b) retirement plan.
• Relocation expenses covered for candidates who wish to move to office locations.
• Visa sponsorship for the United States (case-by-case basis).
• Support and encouragement for flexible working, including flexible hours, remote work, and in-office work.
• Compensation based on a location-based tier system (NYC/SF Bay Area, other US locations, International).

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior