Research Analyst and
Senior Research Analyst
About FRI
Forecasting Research Institute (FRI) advances the science of forecasting to improve decision-making on high-stakes issues. Building on the work of Chief Scientist Philip Tetlock, FRI develops practical forecasting tools and applies them to society’s most critical decisions.
Our work includes:
Creating panels of experts and skilled forecasters to make predictions about complex, long-term challenges facing society, including AI progress, bioweapons, and nuclear risk.
Methodological innovations for predicting hard-to-forecast outcomes, such as applying adversarial collaboration to debates about the future of AI and improving forecasts of low-probability events.
Using AI tools to enhance forecasting research. For example, we maintain a benchmark, ForecastBench, for evaluating the accuracy of AI-produced forecasts.
Our work has been featured in major news outlets, including The Economist, TIME, and Vox. Our team has presented our findings at side events at the United Nations, to Los Alamos National Laboratory, and to leading frontier AI companies, among other top decision-makers.
The role
Research analysts support FRI research projects in a variety of ways, focusing on project and survey design, background research on topics of relevance to forecasting studies, question writing, and writing up research findings. Most research analysts work across several projects concurrently. We expect that most of their work will be focused on applied studies making use of forecasting methods to better understand important topics, but some work may be on experimental scientific work exploring how to improve forecasting methods.
We are open to candidates at a range of experience levels. In addition to contributing to projects, Senior Research Analysts would be expected to lead at least small-scale projects, with supervision from more senior members of the team.
Example tasks include:
Assisting project leads in designing and conducting studies
Distilling complex topics into forecastable questions or clear explainers
Integrating qualitative and quantitative analysis to identify the most important findings of a study
Writing up study findings in a variety of formats, including academic papers, reports, blog posts and policy briefs
Qualifications
Successful candidates will have the following characteristics:
Generalist research skills
Clear, explicit communicator and strong writing skills
Ability to work productively in a self-directed (remote) environment
The ideal candidate would have the following characteristics:
Research or project-level experience, including in academia or an industry role
Familiarity with, and interest in, quantitative forecasting
Familiarity with some of the data skills listed in our data analyst job description, though not required, is preferred
Familiarity with one or more of the following topics:
Risks from advanced AI
Forecasts of AI progress
Biosecurity
Comfort taking on new challenges and learning new tools
We highly encourage you to apply, even if you don't feel completely qualified. Some of the best people we’ve worked with in our careers felt underqualified when they first applied, and we’re glad they did so anyway.
The fine print
Role details
We prefer full-time but are open to part-time roles for the right candidates.
This role is entirely remote, however we ensure that team members have opportunities to connect and collaborate in-person with regular team retreats and virtual collaboration sessions. We are able to hire people in most countries, provided they have pre-existing work authorization for that country. Applicants can work whichever hours of the day work for them but must be consistently available between our core hours of 11am and 3pm ET.
We may be able to sponsor US work visas, however we cannot guarantee that a visa application will be successful.
Salary is commensurate with experience and will likely fall between $70,000-$130,000.
We provide 80% contribution towards fully funded health insurance for staff, 30 days per year of paid time off (including holidays), and up to 10 days of paid sick leave, among other benefits.
Application process
Applications are rolling; we are currently actively reviewing applicants.
The application process will vary by candidate but for successful candidates will typically involve:
An initial application, including a 1-hour work test
A paid 10-hour work test
Three to four 45-minute interviews with members of our team