Talent Mobilization Program Lead

About Constellation

Constellation is an independent research center that brings together people throughout the AI safety ecosystem to accelerate insight, research, and talent through better cooperation. Unlike a conference or summit, Constellation operates continuously, in the form of a physical workspace as well as conference-style talks, workshops, and training bootcamps. Continuous operation allows for relationships and conversations to develop over time, meaningfully fostering trust, collaboration, and shared insight. It also makes Constellation a natural field-building hub by rapidly inspiring, orienting, and connecting people who are newer to the field.

Based in Berkeley, CA, our shared workspace hosts over 200 people per week across dozens of AI safety organizations in nonprofits, academia, industry, and government. Hundreds of other researchers spend time at Constellation for shorter visits each year. We believe this is the strongest and highest-output network of AI safety researchers in the world; dozens of participants in past Constellation programs have gone on to safety-focused roles at companies such as METR, Redwood Research, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and the US and UK Safety Institutes.

About this role

The future of AI safety will be shaped by who works on what, and when. As Talent Mobilization Lead, you'll help create the infrastructure needed to mobilize talent into and within the AI safety ecosystem.

This is a cross-functional, high-autonomy leadership role. You'll set the strategy and approach for how Constellation deploys talent across the ecosystem, working with individual talent, leading research labs, and operational teams across organizational boundaries. You'll lead and develop a team, serve as a recognized domain expert, and partner closely with senior leadership on field-level strategy.

You'll also have latitude to identify and pursue new opportunities for how Constellation shows up in the ecosystem whether that's a new program, a new partnership model, or a new way of supporting talent that doesn't exist yet. If you see a gap, you have the latitude to build toward it.

This role is for a proven operator and talent expert who can simultaneously set direction, build systems, and manage relationships at the field level — someone who earns trust across a wide range of stakeholders and uses that trust to drive meaningful impact.

Key responsibilities:

These are the functions we've identified so far — but we expect the right person to come in, spot gaps we've missed, and make this role their own.

Strategic Talent Deployment

Set the strategy for how Constellation identifies, assesses, and places talent across technical, policy, operational, and interdisciplinary domains. Define approaches for sourcing, vetting, matchmaking, and placement. Proactively identify and engage high-potential individuals (often before others do) and guide them toward roles with outsized impact.

Career Transitions & Advisory Support

Serve as a senior advisor for individuals navigating pivotal career transitions — from fellowships to frontier labs, from academia to applied AI safety, from industry to policy. Develop and maintain resources that support these moves: curated job boards, pathway guides, and specialized channels for active opportunities. Coordinate warm handoffs to hiring organizations and domain-specific advisors.

Team Leadership & Development

Lead, mentor, and develop team members. Set clear direction for the team, provide high-quality feedback, and invest in the professional growth of junior staff. Model the judgment, relationships, and operational excellence that define great talent mobilization.

Cross-Functional & Ecosystem Collaboration

Partner closely with Research Program Managers, operations staff, and senior leadership to anticipate upcoming talent needs and facilitate placements from internal programs. Build and maintain trusted relationships with external field-building organizations (80,000 Hours, BlueDot, and others) to share intelligence, reduce duplication, and strengthen collective efforts.

Field Intelligence & Ecosystem Strategy

Track and analyze talent flows, hiring trends, and emerging gaps in the AI safety field. Maintain a high-context understanding of organizational needs, leadership shifts, and strategic priorities across the ecosystem. Translate insights into new initiatives, partnerships, or programs and have the latitude to pursue them.

Infrastructure & Process Leadership

Own the tooling, systems, and processes that enable talent tracking and matchmaking at scale. Define standards for high-quality introductions, placements, and follow-ups. Lead the design, launch, and evaluation of new talent deployment initiatives as the team grows. Identify gaps in how the field supports talent and propose, pilot, and build new programs or interventions to address them. This isn't a role where the scope is fixed; the right person will find opportunities we haven't seen yet.

Skills & Experience

• Have 7+ years of experience in talent development, recruiting, program management, or people operations (ideally in mission-driven, technical, or complex environments)
• Have an entrepreneurial instinct; you spot opportunities, make a case for them, and have the follow-through to build them out.
• Operate autonomously on highly complex or ambiguous work, set approaches rather than following them, and know when to escalate
• Are a recognized domain expert in talent strategy, capable of shaping how the field thinks about talent mobilization
• Have led cross-functional or high-stakes projects and are comfortable influencing across organizational boundaries without formal authority
• Bring strong interpersonal judgment and can hold high-trust, nuanced conversations with a wide range of stakeholders (from early-career fellows to frontier lab executives)
• Have strong operational instincts; organized, systems-minded, and able to triage, follow up, and execute effectively at scale
• Are familiar with the AI safety ecosystem (or similar mission-driven technical fields) and excited to contribute to its effectiveness and maturity
• Are mission-aligned and values-driven, with a clear sense of why this work matters

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation will depend on experience, but will likely be $170,000 to $220,000 per year.

Our benefits are hard to beat! They include:

• Healthy lunches and dinners catered by our amazing kitchen team

• Unlimited snacks & drinks

• Generous vacation policy

• 401(k) with employer match

• Employer-paid commuter benefits

• High-quality health, dental, and vision insurance

• Friendly and supportive team

• Regular interaction with AI safety researchers and thought leaders

Additional Information

Logistics: This is a full time, on-site role. Our Berkeley office is a few steps from the nearest BART (metro) and bus stop. On-site parking is also available.

The ideal candidate for this role will have some combination of the skills and experiences described above. If you are not sure if you are qualified, we strongly encourage you to apply anyway.  Beyond the qualifications outlined, our priority is building a team that will help humanity safely navigate the development of transformative AI.  If you would be excited to do this work, we’d love to consider you.

We value diversity in all respects and base our hiring decisions on the needs of the organization and individual qualifications.  We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age or disability.