Principal, Project Development

Future of Life Institute (FLI)

Principal, Project Development leading transformative technology initiatives at FLF. Responsible for driving impact from inception to execution in multiple initiative areas.

Posted 6/29/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $140,000 - $200,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own initiative areas end-to-end — from recruiting founders and designing organizations to commissioning products and running fellowships — in service of steering transformative technology toward benefiting humanity.
This role reports to FLF’s Chief Operating Officer.
FLF’s mission is to steer transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from extreme large-scale risks. FLF researches which organizations, projects, or fields would be most useful in steering technology towards benefiting humanity, and then works to help establish those structures. We do whatever it takes to get impactful structures established — such as headhunting leaders, commissioning products, running fellowships, and incubating new organizations. Our vision is that each Project Development Lead (PDL) owns one or more initiative areas (such as AI-facilitated coordination, epistemic evaluations, or epistemic provenance infrastructure) and is responsible for setting the strategic plan and executing within that area — including activities such as founder selection, org design, and product scoping. FLF has dedicated strategic staff and has done substantial work on prioritization across initiatives, so this role focuses on driving impact within your assigned areas rather than on cross-initiative strategy.
We’re hiring 2–3+ PDLs simultaneously to significantly expand our execution capacity. This is a moment of growth for FLF, and these roles will shape the next generation of our work.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Are good at orienting to new spaces, and performing research to understand the status quo, unaddressed needs, and opportunities to engage with existing initiatives
Can take a defined, ambitious goal and drive it to completion — scoping the work, lining up resources, and delivering outcomes — resourcefully navigating challenges along the way
Would equally enjoy executing on others’ plans to achieve these goals as well as figuring out yourself what should happen next with an initiative
Enjoy working on both “moonshots” and concrete MVPs
Are comfortable sourcing and managing contractors and leveraging tools (including AI) to increase productivity
Communicate clearly and work collaboratively within a small team with some defined roles, and some “everyone contributes to everything” spirit
Have an entrepreneurial streak — you’re comfortable building something from scratch with limited guidance, finding creative paths when the obvious one is blocked
Are adept at project management — you can break complex, ambiguous goals into milestones, track dependencies, and keep work on schedule

Benefits

Comp & perks

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Soft Skills

Clear CommunicationCollaborative WorkResourcefulnessProblem SolvingAdaptability