People Operations Specialist / Manager

FAR.AI is seeking a People Operations Specialist (or Manager, depending on experience) to build and shape our people operations function from the ground up.

In this role, you will take full ownership of the entire people operations stack, ensuring everything from recruitment to culture and employee experience runs seamlessly. You’ll be instrumental in creating a supportive, high-performance team environment.

If you thrive on variety, love solving challenges and are excited to help shape the future of a mission driven organization, we’d love to hear from you.

• Apply Now!

About Us

FAR.AI is a non-profit AI research institute dedicated to ensuring the safe development and deployment of frontier AI technologies. Our mission is to ensure AI systems are trustworthy and beneficial to society.

Since our inception in July 2022, we’ve grown quickly to 17 full-time employees, producing 27 influential academic papers, and established the leading AI Safety events for research and international cooperation. Our work is recognized globally, with publications at premier venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, and features in the Financial Times, Nature News and MIT Technology Review.

We drive practical change through red-teaming with frontier model developers and government institutes. Additionally, we help steer and grow the AI safety field through developing research roadmaps with renowned researchers such as Yoshua Bengio. We also operate FAR.Labs, an AI safety-focused co-working space in Berkeley housing 40 members, and support the community through targeted grants to technical researchers.

About FAR.Research

Our research team likes to move fast. We rapidly explore and scale up promising AI safety research directions, maintaining a diverse portfolio of projects rather than committing to a single path.

Our current focus areas include:

• Building a science of robustness (e.g. finding vulnerabilities in superhuman Go AIs)
• Finding more effective approaches to value alignment (e.g. training from language feedback)
• Advancing model evaluation techniques (e.g. inverse scaling and codebook features).

We put our research into practice through red-teaming engagements with frontier AI developers, and collaborations with government institutes.

Other FAR Projects

To build a flourishing field of AI safety research, we host targeted workshops and events, operate FAR.Labs, and provide grants to researchers focusing on priority areas. Our notable previous events include the:

• International Dialogue for AI Safety that brought together prominent scientists (including 2 Turing Award winners) from around the globe, culminating in a public statement calling for global action on AI safety research and governance.
• Semiannual Alignment Workshop with 150 researchers from academia, industry, and government to learn about the latest developments in AI safety and find collaborators. For more information on FAR.AI’s activities, please visit our website.

About the Role

As FAR.AI’s first People Operations hire, you will play a pivotal role in shaping our organization’s future. You’ll have the unique opportunity to build our people operations function, crafting and executing the systems, processes and culture that will support our continued growth. This means taking ownership of the entire employee lifecycle - from talent acquisition and onboarding to employee engagement, retention and beyond.

You’ll work closely with our leadership team and other department leads, bringing structure to everything people ops and creating an environment where employees can do their best work. If you’re someone who wants to put their mark on an organization, loves variety, and is excited by the chance to make a tangible impact, this is the role for you.

Key responsibilities

Full-Cycle Recruitment:

• Manage the entire recruitment process across a variety of roles, with the majority being technical.
• Develop and implement innovative sourcing strategies to build a strong candidate pipeline, including passive candidate outreach.
• Craft compelling job postings and outreach messages that reflect FAR.AI’s mission, culture and impact.
• Screen resumes, conduct initial interviews, and coordinate technical assessments.
• Champion a seamless and positive candidate experience.
• Build, manage and refine recruitment processes, tools (including our ATS), and best practices to increase efficiency and effectiveness.
• Analyze recruitment data and market trends, providing actionable insights to leadership to inform future hiring strategies.

Employee Onboarding & Experience:

• Own, manage, and continuously improve onboarding processes that set new team members up for success.
• Maintain and update the company handbook and staff policies.
• Oversee employee engagement initiatives to foster a positive, inclusive and high-performance work environment.
• Oversee the management and distribution of company swag.
• Help us stay connected by planning our weekly team meetings, and coordinating quarterly team events, including offsites, team-building activities, and social gatherings.

General People Operations:

• Assist with benefits administration, payroll, employment contracts, and visa processes.
• Ensure all HR operations (including OSHA), policies, and procedures are compliant with federal, state, and local regulations, including employment law and labor standards.
• Serve as the go-to contact for general HR inquiries, resolving issues with empathy and efficiency. Identify opportunities to improve internal processes and employee satisfaction.
• Coordinate our quarterly performance check-ins, and make sure FAR.AI employees have the tools they need to thrive.

Employer Branding & Marketing:

• Collaborate with internal teams to enhance FAR.AI’s employer brand, positioning the organization as a top choice for talent.
• Create engaging content for our careers page, social media, and recruitment materials.
• Represent FAR.AI at industry events, meetups, and conferences to network and attract talent.

About You

You’re a proactive, resourceful professional who loves rolling up your sleeves to get things done and hustle. You thrive in dynamic environments and are passionate about building teams that make a meaningful impact - including evangelizing the importance of people operations and recruiting internally. You’re excited to work with a mission-driven team to solve problems and improve processes.

Strongly preferred:

• People Operations Expertise: 3 – 5 years of experience in people operations, HR, or related fields.
• Talent Acquisition Skills: Proven experience in full-cycle recruiting, preferably with technical roles.
• Exceptional Communication Skills: Strong writing and verbal skills; able to craft personalized and effective messages that pitches FAR.AI’s mission and opportunities compellingly.
• Hustle and Initiative: A self-starter who is comfortable with ambiguity and can independently drive the people function.
• Marketing: Experience in employer branding and the ability to develop strategies to enhance our talent attraction.
• Relationship Builder: Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to build trust and collaborate effectively with candidates and internal stakeholders.

Nice to have:

• Experience in Fast-Paced Environments: You’ve worked in startups, nimble nonprofits, or high-growth teams before and can adapt to change quickly.
• Technical Acumen: Familiarity with AI, machine learning, or related technical fields, allowing you to engage credibly with candidates.
• Network in AI Research: Established connections within the AI research community or experience working with highly technical fields.

Logistics

You will be a FTE employee of FAR.AI, a 501(c)(3) research non-profit.

• Location: Hybrid – While we prefer applicants to be based in our Berkeley office, we are also open to candidates who can work remotely, provided they can approximately align with West Coast (Pacific Time) hours.
• Hours: Full-time (40 hours/week).
• Compensation: $85,000 - $125,000 / year depending on experience and location. We will also cover work-related travel and equipment expenses. Catered lunch and dinner are provided at our Berkeley office.

Application process: Our application process includes a screening call, a test task, and three interviews with our team. For some candidates, we may offer a short work trial to assess mutual fit. We expect filling out the initial application form will take less than 15 minutes.

Please apply! If you’re excited about this role and our mission, we encourage you to apply — even if your experience doesn’t perfectly match every qualification. We value diverse backgrounds and skills. If you have any questions about the role, feel free to contact us at talent@far.ai.