Video Senior Operations

SUMMARY

80,000 Hours https://80000hours.org/ is a nonprofit that helps people find careers tackling the world’s most pressing problems. Our video team produces AI in Context https://www.youtube.com/@AIinContext, a YouTube channel that makes long-form, documentary-style videos helping people understand transformative AI, its implications, and the risks, including existential risks. Past videos include “We’re Not Ready for Superintelligence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KVDDfAkRgc&t=1s” (10M+ views) and “If You Remember One AI Disaster, Make It This One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_9wkavYt4Y” (3M+ views). We recently won a Webby for People’s Voice for Best Documentary Storytelling.

We’re looking for someone to take real operational ownership across a wide surface area of the video team’s work. This is a role for someone with high agency who can grab a fuzzy problem, figure out what needs to happen, and run through walls to make it happen.

Location: San Francisco Bay Area (first choice) or London preferred, but open to remote. Willingness to travel for shoots in the Bay Area and London is required.

Type of role: Full time

Salary: Depends on experience and location, with indicative ranges of $109,000-150,000 (£81,000–111,000) for remote, £93,000-121,000 for London and $151,000–196,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

To apply, please complete the application form by 11:00 PM PT on Monday, June 15, 2026

ABOUT US

80,000 Hours helps people find careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems. Our AI in Context YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KVDDfAkRgc&t=1s makes documentary-style videos about transformative AI — its implications, the risks (including existential risks), and what people can do about it. We’ve published three videos so far (all with 1M+ views), and we want to hone our production.

THE ROLE

This is a role with a wide surface area. We want someone who can take ownership of operational work across the team and keep grabbing new areas as they emerge. The specific mix will shift over time, but the work includes things like:

PRODUCTION LOGISTICS

Working with vendors, booking studios, acting as production lead on shoots.

HIRING PIPELINES

Running searches for new team members and contractors, writing and evaluating work tests, designing and running work trials.

LAUNCH OPERATIONS

Writing copy, coordinating across stakeholders, making sure we have all the branding materials ready.

DISTRIBUTION AND SOCIAL

Getting videos in front of more people, including international audiences (for example, Chinese social media platforms like Bilibili and WeChat). Thinking about how to extend the reach of work we’ve already made.

CREATING MORE CONTENT

• Developing a vision for a second channel based on the kind of content we already make, and coordinating the work needed to make it happen.
• Ideally, able to source, support, and evaluate creative content, or even make it: social media graphics, thumbnails, scripts, etc.

COMMUNITY WORK

Developing and running a Discord or similar community space for our viewers.

PARTNERSHIP COORDINATION

Working with video subjects, advisors, and other organisations in the space.

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

Coordinating contractors and managing others on the team as we grow.

GRABBING NEW AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY AUTONOMOUSLY AND RELIABLY

We’re a small team moving quickly, and new things come up all the time. We want someone who’s excited to autonomously take on areas they haven’t done before and be extremely reliable.

ABOUT THE TEAM

You’d be working with the video team within 80,000 Hours, currently four full-time people

• Aric Floyd (Associate Video Producer) is our on-camera host and one of our primary scriptwriters, and the person you’d work with most closely. He has a background as an actor, and he’s the on-camera face of the channel as well as one of the creative engines behind our scripts.
• Phoebe Brooks (Video Production Specialist), based in London, has a background as a filmmaker. She leads on editing, production, and post-production and is the creative lead on our current in-production video.
• Sage Bergerson (Video Operations Associate) keeps the operational side of the team running.
• Chana Messinger (Head of Video) leads the team.

We also work with many excellent contractors.

We’re a small team that works quickly to try to produce extremely high quality long-form videos about transformative AI and existential risk in a way that’s thoughtful and entertaining. We’ve had more quick success than we expected, and we want to keep aiming high. It’s a place where storytelling, impact-focus, and artistry all meet, and it’s often extremely fun. You can see us hard at work here https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxGClOPtW88xsxRlUP2Og0zunfodL-ABGh.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

• High agency: Someone who can take a fuzzy problem, figure out what needs to happen, and run through walls to make it happen.
• Ownership end-to-end: You take projects from scoping to completion, managing timelines, stakeholders, and the moving pieces independently.
• Clear and proactive communication: Your work is cognitively easy to engage with: you highlight key points, state your bottom line clearly, and structure things so others can follow your reasoning without effort.
• High energy and high pace of work
• Resourcefulness and judgment: You weigh competing considerations well and land on sensible answers under uncertainty and bring resourcefulness to problems you haven’t seen before. You’re comfortable operating in ambiguity rather than waiting for a process to follow.
• Reliability: You follow through on what you say you’ll do, you don’t drop balls, and your work is consistently high-quality.
• Independence and autonomy
• Willingness to take on new areas, including the unglamorous, even if it’s something you haven’t done before. You’ll be dealing with plenty of mundane tasks, rapid-fire requests and picking up wherever the team needs extra capacity.
• Context on AI risk or ability to learn quickly: You don’t need to know about AI risk when you start, though it will help. More important is that you can acquire the basic understanding quickly through talking to people, watching videos, reading papers, etc.

POSSIBLE BACKGROUNDS

We don’t have a fixed picture of who’s right for this. Backgrounds that could fit include

• Operations or chief of staff at a startup, studio, or small org
• Production management in video, film, or media
• Founding team or early employee at something that scaled
• Operations roles in EA, AI safety, or adjacent communities
• Or none of the above — if you’ve shown you can just make things work, we want to hear from you.

LOGISTICS

This role is ideally based in the San Francisco Bay Area (first choice) or London, but we’re open to remote candidates. Travel to shoots in the Bay Area and London will be required regardless of where you’re based.

Salary depends on experience and location, with indicative ranges of $109,000-150,000 (£81,000–111,000) for remote, £93,000-120,997 for London and $151,000–196,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This role reports to Chana Messinger (Head of Video).

UK and US visa sponsorship may be possible, though we cannot guarantee the success of US visa applications. More guidance here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cj5oqSxPNsLEjWnIWOHjGak8w5IerbCmlPe43OfJztw/edit?tab=t.0

BENEFITS

Our US benefits include

• 25 days of paid time off, plus nine US federal holidays, with unlimited rollover
• Medical coverage through Cigna for you and your dependents (including partner), 100% employer-paid
• Dental and vision insurance through Guardian, 100% employer-paid
• Long-term disability insurance, 100% employer-paid
• 401(k) with employer matching up to 2% of gross salary (after 3 months)
• Up to 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave and childcare allowance for children under five
• Up to 10 days of paid sick leave per year, in addition to PTO
• $5,000 annual mental health support allowance
• $5,000 annual self-development budget
• Equipment provided (laptop, monitors, standing desk, etc.) and coworking space access if remote
• The option to use 10% of your time for self-development

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, please complete the application form by 11:00 PM PT on Monday, June 15, 2026.

The assessment process will include 1-2 rounds of work tests, an interview, and a full day or multi-day assessment. We pay for work tests and the full/multi-day assessment, conditional on location and right to work in the country where you are taking the assessment. If we are unable to compensate you, we offer donations in lieu of payment to an effective charity of your choice.

We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to apply for roles for which they meet many but not all the suggested attributes, and would especially like to encourage people from under-represented backgrounds to apply, even if you don’t meet all the suggested criteria.