(Senior) Researcher or Research Manager
Rethink Priorities
📍Remote (Global) 🕘 Part or Full Time
💰$75-142,000 USD ⏳ 31/07/2025
We are expanding the Global Health and Development (GHD) Department at Rethink Priorities (RP) and are hiring:
Researcher / Senior Researcher: core desk-based research role
Senior Research Manager: research-management role, involving people & project leadership
The GHD department carries out short research projects, often commissioned by philanthropic organizations and other relevant actors in the domains of global health, international development, and climate change. You can read some examples of our past work on our website.
We strive to produce research that helps relevant stakeholders improve their decision-making, with the final goal of having a positive impact. Our clients include large funders such as Open Philanthropy, GiveWell, and the Gates Foundation, as well as smaller, high-impact nonprofits. In the medium-term, we intend to continue these commissioned projects alongside our own agenda of impactful, neglected research questions.
Researcher/ Senior Researcher: In their daily work, new researchers in our team will conduct and critically assess secondary research, working closely with colleagues and clients to produce high-quality, decision-relevant outputs. Researchers at any level may lead and coordinate projects, making decisions to ensure that our projects are high-quality and meet deadlines. With increasing seniority, researchers will be asked to contribute more to outreach, fundraising, and strategy efforts. We are open to hiring one or more new team members at either the Researcher or Senior Researcher level.
Senior Research Manager: A new manager will spend roughly 20-50% of their time on research, primarily with a focus on guidance and review of ongoing projects to ensure that the outputs are rigorous and timely. At times, managers may also conduct secondary research themselves. With the remaining 50-80% of their time, managers will be expected to line-manage staff directly and contribute to team management responsibilities, outreach, fundraising and strategy alongside our GHD Director and existing Senior Research Manager. We plan to hire one Senior Research Manager.
For both roles, expertise in specific topic areas is valued, but we are looking for someone comfortable applying generalist research experience across a variety of global health and development topics, including outside of that area.
Applicants may apply to the Researcher, Senior Researcher, and Senior Research Manager positions simultaneously, if desired; in later hiring stages, we may narrow your candidacy based on your fit for each role.
All roles are fully remote and we are able to legally hire in many countries. While we welcome applicants from all time zones, given the collaborative nature of our work, you should be prepared to attend calls with those working in a range of time zones, from US Pacific to Central European time. This role is open to part-time (minimum 30 hours per week) and full-time candidates.
Key Responsibilities
(Senior) Researcher
As a (Senior) Researcher, your main responsibilities will include:
Conducting secondary research on a variety of global health, international development, and climate change topics. Our research process usually involves:
Literature review (including assessment of the quality of evidence)
Expert outreach and interviews
Some form of quantitative modeling (e.g., back of the envelope calculations, cost-effectiveness analyses)
Writing and reviewing client- and public-facing research reports
Leading research projects, which generally includes:
Developing the overall research approach and execution plan, based on the decision to be informed, requested outputs, and time available
Coordinating tasks and seeing them through to completion with teammates
Leading regular meetings with clients and teammates to communicate progress, discuss uncertainties, and agree next steps
Contributing to the GHD Department’s strategy as requested, which may include:
Identifying or developing promising research ideas
Supporting departmental fundraising efforts
Providing input to our department’s strategy and priorities
Increasingly senior researchers will be expected to conduct and lead research projects with less support from research managers, while in turn providing support to more junior colleagues. They will more often be requested to contribute to strategic and fundraising initiatives, reflecting more developed skills such as proposal writing and strategic and critical thinking.
Senior Research Manager
As a Senior Research Manager, your main responsibilities will include:
Managing research projects
Input to research approaches and plans, to ensure high-quality, timely outputs
Review of secondary research conducted by project teams
Client engagement and relationship management, particularly at the beginning and ends of research projects
Direct line management and wider team management, including:
Management of 1-2 researchers, including weekly 1:1s, biannual performance evaluations, and ongoing coaching for professional development
Scheduling team capacity for commissioned research projects and other internal priorities
Quality assurance of public-facing outputs
Other support provided to the team as required, e.g., hiring, retreat planning
Contributing to the GHD Department’s strategy, which will involve working with the GHD Director and other RP teams to:
Execute our medium-term strategy, and update our approach where needed
Cultivate external relationships through warm and cold outreach
Develop proposals and budgets for commissioned research
Provide input to our department’s strategy and priorities
Increasingly senior research managers will be expected to fulfil these responsibilities with greater autonomy, and with greater focus on impact.
What We Are Looking For
Skills and Competencies
The following skills and competencies are expected for any role:
Impact focus: Rethink Priorities’ mission is to support relevant stakeholders to achieve significant positive impact. Our research projects and other initiatives are always carried out with potential for impact as one of the main considerations.
Research rigor: researchers and managers are responsible for conducting and/or directing secondary research that will be informative and useful for our clients and the broader community. As such, relying on a sound methodology to collate the relevant evidence and being able to critically assess its quality and properly summarize its findings is key.
Strategic and critical thinking: within research projects, strategic and critical thinking is necessary to propose the best course of action given constraints (e.g. scope, time) and pivot as needed given new evidence or external events (e.g., change in client preferences). Senior Researchers and Managers will also more often be expected to display these skills by contributing to the GHD department’s strategy.
Reasoning transparency: we hope that our research reports help key stakeholders improve their decision making. To support this mission, we strive for utmost clarity in our outputs, particularly around the reasoning supporting our conclusions. It is therefore important to be able to document key steps in arguments and identify/summarize important takeaways, while recognizing and highlighting uncertainties; it is also crucial to include sources of support for any claims.
Quantitative modeling: researchers and managers must be comfortable building and engaging with quantitative models, such as spreadsheet analyses of cost-effectiveness. Our secondary research often involves identifying and assessing relevant statistical analyses in academic papers, so comfortable understanding and interpreting results from such analysis is necessary.
Self-/time-management: our projects are often commissioned and fast-paced, and often involve coordinating multiple types of research (e.g., modelling, desk research, and expert interviews) simultaneously. Senior Researchers and Managers also juggle additional responsibilities in addition to research projects. At all levels, being able to confidently and independently capture, prioritize, and execute on tasks is paramount.
Project management: excellent project management skills to ensure proper coordination across teammates and timely completion of the work will be essential.
Collaboration/teamwork: most of our research is conducted collaboratively. Being able to work and communicate well and regularly with teammates is key for our projects’ success, and our team’s close-knit and supportive culture.
Written and verbal communication: our primary outputs are written reports, which inform those who commissioned them and, where possible, are also shared more widely with relevant stakeholders. As a result, good writing skills are crucial. Strong communication skills - both written and verbal - are also necessary to ensure clarity and alignment internally within project teams, and externally with clients.
Outreach: researchers will routinely conduct outreach to contact experts for interviews (whether through existing connections or cold contact). Outreach may also be required as part of fundraising and networking activities, especially for more senior staff.
A Senior Research Manager should exhibit high levels of the above attributes, as well as the following management-specific skills and competencies:
Review: we maintain high quality in our research outputs through a rigorous system of internal review. This process applies both to client deliverables, and reports we make available to the public. Research managers must exercise judgement to identify and triage areas for improvement across a range of priorities, including reasoning transparency, research rigor, and writing clarity.
Workflow and skills management: our team aims to have the most impact possible with the resources available. Scheduling is a vital component of this: ensuring we staff projects and other priorities appropriately, with the right mix of skills.
Line management: our department has a supportive and collaborative culture. As a manager, it will be important to continue to foster this through coaching, feedback, active listening, and strong interpersonal skills.
Knowledge and Experience
Essential
Research experience
Comfort with independent, remote work
Excellent writing, communication, and project management skills
Comfort reaching out to and engaging professionally with experts in a variety of fields
(Managers only) Direct line-management experience
Desired
Experience with (cost-effectiveness) modeling
Experience working in the domains of global health, international development, and/or climate change
Experience leading collaborative projects and stakeholder engagement
Experience with research fundraising
Comfort with or openness to using project management and communication tools such as Slack, Zoom, Asana, and Google Workspace
Comfort with or openness to using tools such as Deep Research, Gemini, ChatGPT, etc.
Note on Researcher Seniority
Most researcher-track candidates will be considered for our baseline Researcher role. However, we strongly encourage applications from candidates with more experience.
We will consider a Senior Researcher title and commensurate compensation for applicants who demonstrate significant qualifications. Such qualifications can include an advanced degree like a PhD, a track record of high-quality written work, and substantial relevant experience (typically 5+ years), often in combination with one another.
What We Offer
Compensation
We offer annual salary between the following ranges for a full-time position, prorated for part-time work:
Researcher
$75,000 - $90,000 USD pre-tax
£58,000 - £69,000 GBP pre-tax
€67,000 - €80,000 EUR pre-tax
Senior Researcher
$114,000 - $142,000 USD pre-tax
£88,000 - £110,000 GBP pre-tax
€102,000 - €127,000 EUR pre-tax
Senior Research Manager
$118,000 - $142,000 USD pre-tax
£91,000 - £110,000 GBP pre-tax
€105,000 - €127,000 EUR pre-tax
The exact salary will be based on the candidate’s prior relevant experience and corresponding title level, and calculated using RP’s salary algorithm.
Compensation is not restricted to the currencies listed above.
To ensure fairness across the entire organization, RP does not negotiate salaries.
Other Benefits
Opportunity to contribute to a fast-growing, high-impact organization — our research is used by key decision makers who influence the distribution of hundreds of millions of charitable dollars.
Flexible work hours and location.
Comprehensive global benefits package (while this varies by country, we make every effort to ensure that our benefits package is equitable and high-quality for all staff).
Generous paid time off (PTO) leave and unpaid leave, including:
“Mandated” 3-week total mid- and end-year organization-wide breaks
Unlimited (within reason) personal and sick paid and unpaid leave
Parental leave - up to 4 months paid and up to an additional 5 months unpaid parental leave that can be taken prior to and/or during the first 2 years after a child’s birth or adoption
Other paid and unpaid leave (e.g., bereavement)
A caring team that values respectful work relations and a healthy work-life balance.
Opportunities to grow/advance your career and engage in professional development.
Low administrative bureaucracy.
We don’t provide snacks, but we could mail you a box of Oreos if you want!
Additional Information
Role-Specific
Work Environment and Visa Sponsorship: This role is fully remote and we are able to legally hire in many countries. In certain cases, we may be able to provide visa sponsorship to the US or UK and help candidates relocate. If you have questions about whether we can hire or provide visa sponsorship in another country and if this will influence your decision about applying, please contact careers@rethinkpriorities.org before submitting your application.
Time Zones and Working Hours: While we welcome applicants from all time zones, you may be expected to attend meetings with those working in a range of time zones, from US Pacific to Central European time. Depending on your personal timezone, this might mean early morning or evening calls; however, you would not be required to attend calls outside of waking hours.
Full-Time Position: This role is open to full-time and part-time candidates who are available to work at least 30 hours per week.
Travel: Travel is not an essential requirement for this position. However, a majority of our staff travel a few times per year for conferences, team and all-staff retreats, and other work-related purposes. In most cases, travel is not mandatory, but encouraged. If, for any reason, you would prefer not to travel for work, please do not be discouraged from applying. Depending on the event, we can likely make accommodations, such as allowing virtual participation when possible.
Language: Professional level of English language is required for all roles at Rethink Priorities.
Hiring Process-Specific
Extension requests: We will try to accommodate extension requests that are made before the deadline and are up to three (3) days. We generally cannot accommodate extension requests made after the application deadline, or are longer than 3 days, and cannot accept late submissions to ensure fairness to other applicants.
Application materials: All application materials must be submitted in English language; otherwise, we will not be able to evaluate your candidacy.
Inclusivity and fairness: RP is committed to building an inclusive, equitable, and supportive community for you to thrive and do your best work. Please don’t hesitate to apply for a role regardless of your age, gender identity/expression, political identity, personal preferences, physical abilities, veteran status, neurodiversity or any other background. We provide reasonable accommodations and benefits, including, for example, flexible work schedules and locations, mental health coverage through medical benefits (as available), as well as technology budgets and professional development time that can be used, for example, to purchase assistive technology or engage in job coaching.
Accessibility: We’re committed to running an inclusive and accessible hiring process. We warmly invite you to reach out to careers@rethinkpriorities.org with any questions or accessibility requests such as chat box use during interviews.
Hiring Software: We use a Pinpoint platform for our recruitment and hiring processes and all of the email correspondence is done via Pinpoint. We encourage you to add Pinpoint domain (@pinpoint.email) to your trusted contacts and/or check your 'spam', 'promotions' and ‘updates’ folders, if you don’t hear from us within the expected timeframe.
Other: Visit our Career webpage if you’d like to know more about our hiring process, culture, and what working at RP is like.
About Rethink Priorities
Founded in 2018, Rethink Priorities (RP) is a think-and-do tank. Through research and action, the organization improves the lives of humans and animals—both now and in the future.
We work to identify solutions, mobilize resources, and empower our team and others to address some of the world’s most pressing problems. Our team conducts rigorous research across animal welfare, climate change, global health, international development, and other important and neglected areas. Our operations experts help high-impact organizations to improve efficiency and achieve meaningful results.
RP works as all of the following:
A consultancy doing commissioned work in response to demands from organizations doing high-impact work
A research institute driven by research agendas we set according to our own priorities.
A think tank aiming to inform public policy to improve the world.
An accelerator, incubator, and base for priority projects.
Accomplishments include:
Bringing attention to neglected issues, such as lead exposure, fungal diseases, and shrimp welfare.
Increasing the collective impact of advocates across each field in which we work through strategic coordination.
Investigating potential interventions and identifying the most cost-effective options. In 2025, our research influenced tens of millions of dollars in foundation grants.
Creating practical tools for philanthropists to compare resource allocations across different species and cause areas and to build giving portfolios despite uncertainties.
Providing organizations with data to inform their decisions. For example, we have conducted surveys on perceptions of existential risks, AI, effective giving, and other topics.
Providing fiscal sponsorship and operational support to ensure that high-impact initiatives in areas like AI safety and animal welfare can launch and grow effectively.
We welcome you to review our research database and our latest annual report.
