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Convergent Research is a nonprofit science studio best known for pioneering the Focused Research Organization (FRO): purpose-built, mission-driven orgs designed to solve technological bottlenecks, unlock whole new fields, and lead to scaled revolutions. We’ve proven our model works by building over 14 high-impact scientific organizations spanning AI, biotech, mathematics, climate science, and more.

AI capability is compounding faster than the world's ability to absorb it. Other technologies got decades to sort out their safety codes, their testing regimes, and the institutions that enforce them. We don't have decades. The defenses have to be built while the technology is still moving, and there's no budget line anywhere that says build the defenses now.

That's the gap this role exists to close. Not "how do we build another AI company" — plenty of people are doing that. This role is about building the missing institutions and technical infrastructure that make the world resilient to advanced AI: the defensive capabilities that won't be built by a startup, won't fit inside an academic lab, and are too important to leave to chance.

What you’ll do

Partners at Convergent are like senior partners at a venture incubator. You'll create and fully own a growing portfolio of FROs and other scientific projects that advance AI resilience — society's capacity to capture AI's benefits while withstanding its risks.

The portfolio is yours to define, but the surface area is much bigger than model safety alone. It spans defensive biosecurity (pathogen-agnostic detection, next-generation PPE, rapid countermeasures), provably secure cyber-physical systems and formal verification, epistemic infrastructure for a world flooded with AI-generated content, independent evaluation and monitoring capacity, compute governance, economic modeling of the transition — and areas nobody has named yet. The unifying question: what keystone defensive capability, if it existed, would make the world meaningfully harder to break?

You will have extreme latitude to decide what your portfolio should include, and the resources to go build it.

You’ll form strong theses, find extraordinary founders, pressure-test ideas, raise money, build boards, launch organizations, and help them move with the speed and focus of the best deep-tech startups.

Specifically, you will:

• Roadmap the AI resilience landscape to identify the bottlenecks and keystone capabilities worth building organizations around
• Source and diligence ideas for new projects and organizations and design funding calls in partnership with funders
• Build founding teams and help recruit the early hires who will make or break them
• Directly contribute to and coach founders on technical and organizational roadmaps, fundraising, and standing up startup ops from zero
• Serve as a Director on multiple FRO boards, keeping teams on track against milestones and helping founders make the genuinely hard calls on funding, strategic direction, hiring, firing, and operations
• Represent Convergent externally, building high-trust relationships with the philanthropic and public funders now committing serious capital to AI resilience
• Contribute to Convergent-wide initiatives like our Founder Retreats and Residencies

Who you are

• You understand the AI landscape of 2026 in granular detail: who is building what, why, and on what timeline
• More importantly, you have a view on where that leaves the rest of the world exposed, and which of those exposures are tractable and through what clever ideas and technical methods they might be patchable, and who are the people developing those ideas
• You have ideas, or a credible plan to find ideas, for large-scale efforts that would measurably improve how the world weathers this transition
• You can argue passionately for a thesis about where philanthropic capital should go, and then argue the other side just as well
• You're technically fluent in frontier AI, enough to tell a real bottleneck from a fashionable one
• You have a deep network in the field and people pick up when you call
• You know how startups actually work, probably because you’ve worked at one, or at a venture firm, or built something yourself
• You’ve raised money, owned a budget, written technical roadmaps, and hired people
• You’ve assembled a group of people to do a hard technical thing, and it worked
• You’ve spent time around boards, governance, or nonprofit leadership
• You communicate clearly and you move fast

It’s okay if you don’t meet every single criterion above perfectly. If you've read this far, and you're already sketching the organization you'd build first, we want to hear from you.

In 6 months you will have

• Written a clear thesis for Convergent’s AI resilience portfolio: the areas we should pursue, the bottlenecks we are uniquely positioned to unlock, and the kinds of founders we should be backing.
• Helped at least one promising founder or founding team move from early concept toward a fundable, technically credible organizational plan.
• Built a strong map of the AI resilience ecosystem, including researchers, funders, labs, nonprofits, policymakers, and technical experts whose work should inform our portfolio.
• Sourced and diligenced a serious pipeline of potential FROs or FRO-like projects, with several ready for deeper development
• Built trusted relationships with key funders and external advisors who can help us launch ambitious new AI resilience institutions.

What you’ll get

• A rare chance to build institutional architecture for frontier science alongside some of the sharpest people working across a dozen fields
• Competitive salary, with a range of $200,000 - $350,000.
• Up to a 6% 401k match because future-you deserves comfort
• Top-tier medical, dental, and vision insurance—majority of options are fully covered for you and your dependents. Stay healthy, my friend
• Company-paid life insurance, AD&D, long- and short-term disability insurance, as well as voluntary supplemental insurance options
• 19 holidays (including a full week off at the end of the year—yes, we enforce it)
• 3 weeks PTO with tenure increases, with separate allotments for sick and parental leave
• Generous fertility benefits and childcare reimbursement—because tiny humans are a big deal
• Education and professional development benefits
• Wellness allowance for fitness and wellness activities (treat yourself to climbing shoes or Calm.com—no judgment)
• 3x/year offsite team retreats and additional opportunities to meet your teammates in person

$200,000 - $350,000 a year

We’re committed to offering competitive, mission-aligned compensation that reflects the value you’ll bring. For each role, we set a salary range using market benchmarks and internal leveling, and we place offers within that range based on relevant experience, skills, and scope. As a nonprofit, our compensation practices are designed to align with our compensation philosophy and IRS requirements.

Convergent Research exists to fill a structural gap in the R&D system. We enable fundamental research that requires unusual levels of scale and coordination yet is not rapidly monetizable by industry. We’re bringing together top talent from academia, industry, and startups to build a new model for innovative R&D.

We are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse workplace where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. We believe in hiring individuals based on their unique talents—not on race, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law or our company policies. We are more than a proud Equal Employment Opportunity employer. Our goal is to foster a healthy, safe, and respectful environment where all employees are valued and treated with dignity. Harassment of any kind is not tolerated here.

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