SFP versus SFF: SFP awards small grants and service contracts for mission-aligned projects that don't yet have an institutional home; for larger grants to existing charities, visit SFF.
Grant Software Engineer
Annual compensation: starting at $220,000
Survival and Flourishing Projects, a fiscally sponsored project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, is seeking a highly numerate developer to improve and maintain existing grant evaluation software currently in use by the Survival and Flourishing Fund, and develop the surrounding grant-making process into a self-contained app, making it easier for philanthropists to delegate grant-making discussions and deliberation to trusted advisors.
The application is at the bottom of this page.
Qualifications
- Strong numeracy, including existing familiarity with:
- Calculus
- Matrix and tensor operations
- Database management for data science
- Skill or readiness to skill up on:
- Full-stack web development in Javascript / REACT
- Management of user accounts (e.g., “sign in with google”) and private data
- Updating UI features based on design requests.
Current state of development
The software in its current form has been used by several philanthropists to date, including Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and the Casey & Family Foundation, via the S-process of the Survival and Flourishing Fund. We believe it’s time to improve the software and make it into a self-contained app, with secure accounts for both philanthropists, advisors, and applicants seeking funding.
Why this position exists
Over the past few years, the interest of large philanthropic donors in improving the long term future of humanity has drastically increased. SFP wants to develop our process into an easy-to-use app that makes it easier for philanthropists to implement the deliberation process used by SFF, in turn making deliberation about the future and how to improve it more principled, more engaging for groups of stakeholders with divergent views, and more action-oriented.
Duties of position
This position would work on app development full-time, reporting to SFP Director Andrew Critch, in collaboration with Oliver Habryka and others at Lightcone Infrastructure, Scott Garrabrant at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, David Dalrymple at Protocol Labs, and several other interested parties. Activities will include:
- Implementing and adjusting mathematical formulas for combined decision-making.
- Prototyping and designing visual user-interfaces for manipulating grant evaluations, utility functions and collective decision-making algorithms.
- Meeting with Andrew for a few hours every week or two, with occasional day-long sprints.
- Performing weekly user-interviews with test-users and present users of the app (2-4 hours/week total).
In this role, your focus will be on deeply understanding the principles behind the S-process, as well as the needs and interests of highly numerate philanthropists who we hope will use our app.
Organizational culture
SFP is a lightweight organization. Aside from Andrew, collaborators will be from a mix of other institutions, based on their interest in shaping philanthropic processes aligned with SFP’s mission and principles.
Salary and benefits
Annual salary will be at least $220,000 plus health benefits, and can be negotiated upward to be competitive with data science and full-stack web development and data science, up to a maximum of $300,000.
Work authorization
SFP does not have a standard process to apply for visas, but we can hire remote contractors to remain living and working outside the United States. We can also partner with other mission-aligned institutions who may be able to provide a visa for this role.