Senior Cross-Cutting Researcher

GiveWell’s mission is to help people in need as much as we can by researching the most cost‑effective ways to save and improve lives, sharing our work openly, and directing donations to the programs we believe will do the most good. Our work, which focuses on global health and well-being, is funded by tens of thousands of donors who rely on our research to inform their giving. We’ve grown from directing $1.5 million in 2010 to directing more than $400 million in 2025. We anticipate our total grantmaking is likely to approach or even exceed $1 billion this year, and we are working toward a future that could be several times that scale. Through years of deliberate groundwork, we’ve been growing our research capacity and scope in order to direct substantially more funding to the most impactful opportunities we can find.

Update: We will stop accepting new applications for this role on November 26, 2026.

Summary

GiveWell is seeking a Senior Researcher on our Cross-Cutting team to help us make better funding decisions across our entire portfolio. The Cross-Cutting team works on methodological questions, research quality, and big-picture problems that don't sit naturally inside any single program area.

Cross-Cutting team’s work has included pressure-testing our work through retrospective evaluations of completed grants ( "lookbacks" ) and scrutinizing grantmaking areas ( "red teaming" ), collecting more on-the-ground quantitative and qualitative information to check what our grantmaking might be missing, looking for ways to use AI to improve our research process, experimenting with new ways to solicit feedback , figuring out how to quantify the “value of information” in our grantmaking, and answering thorny research questions that affect our entire portfolio.

As a Senior Cross-Cutting Researcher, you'll shape ambitious research agendas that cut across GiveWell's portfolios and answer complex questions that inform grantmaking decisions across the organization. The researchers on our team combine rigorous evidence review, cost-effectiveness modeling, and thoughtful judgment.

We're open to a wide variety of professional development pathways depending on your preferences and our needs.

The role

You will be joining a small team focused on the methodological and cross-portfolio questions that shape how GiveWell does research. You'll sift through the countless questions we could try to answer, hone in on those that matter most, and partner with grantmaking teams (Malaria, Water, Nutrition, Vaccines, Livelihoods, New Areas) to pressure-test and extend their work. You'll also communicate externally about your work and mentor and advise other researchers on the team.

You will shape a research agenda that brings rigor and creativity to the thorniest questions GiveWell faces across its grantmaking. Your work will combine empirical evidence review and critical synthesis, cost-effectiveness modeling, discussions with subject matter experts, understanding of the broader context, and your own judgment. In the course of your work, you might approach questions like:

• Are our grants actually achieving what we predicted? How do we know, and how can we improve our decisions over time?

• How do we systematically incorporate field insights, monitoring data, and external feedback into our work?

• How do we design M&E systems that tell us whether grants are working, not just whether grantees are reporting what we asked for?

• How can we use AI tools to speed up or increase the quality of our work?

• How should we model spillover effects? Do health programs affect income, and vice versa? Are we consistent in how we handle this across program areas?

• How should we set our cost-effectiveness bar over time when funding and spending vary unpredictably year to year?

• How should we value averting a death versus improving health outcomes versus increasing income? (Our "moral weights" problem)

• Where are the systematic risks in our research (i.e., the areas where if we're wrong, we're making big mistakes in how we allocate funding)?

Team structure

Our research department is currently organized into eight teams, including Cross-Cutting:

• Five of the teams (Water, Livelihoods, Nutrition, Malaria, and Vaccines) focus on specific areas of grantmaking.

• The New Areas team focuses on interventions in domains that are new to GiveWell.

• The Commons team provides generalized research support to each of the other teams, including landscaping research, vetting, and publishing.

The Cross-Cutting team works closely with other grantmaking teams. Projects typically involve partnering with a team to pressure-test or extend their work, or running methodological projects that set standards across the department.

Team values

We think our research team has unique qualities:

• We care deeply and centrally about finding and sharing truth. Truth-seeking is one of our core values . We post our mistakes and we prize our team members who keep our culture of free-flowing feedback strong.

• We are independent. We focus 100% on finding the most cost-effective opportunities to save and improve lives. Our researchers assist in communicating our research findings to the public and our donors, and on occasion we provide tailored advice to ultra-high-net-worth donors who want to rely on our expertise to direct their giving—but we never ask our researchers to trade off against honesty, or to hide their real beliefs.

• We don’t waste time. Once it’s clear that a particular research question is unlikely to change our bottom-line funding recommendation, we drop it as quickly as possible. We encourage our research staff to constantly re-evaluate their portfolios and only work on the highest-priority questions.

• Lean research team = huge personal impact. In 2026, our research team of ~80 people is directing close to 1 billion dollars and we expect grantmaking dollars per research team member to increase in the future.

• We work well together. Our research team is lean because we’re able to attract top-tier people, all of whom complete skills-based assessments before joining our staff. We maintain a high-performing, collegial culture and pay our staff accordingly.

About you

Senior Cross-Cutting Researchers typically have quantitatively oriented advanced degrees and substantial relevant experience using empirical tools to make rigorous, evidence-based decisions in the real world. Practically, our senior research staff typically has 5-10 years of post-grad work experience prior to joining GiveWell. We're happy to consider applicants who do not have advanced degrees, but we'll look for a commensurate amount of relevant experience.

We expect that people with the soft qualities below will be the most successful and happy on our team. This isn’t a full list, but hopefully it conveys the gist of our team’s professional personality:

• GiveWell’s mission and methods are personally energizing—you like our approach to research and you find personal meaning in our story of impact.

• You’re abnormally curious—you ask lots of questions, and you’re willing to interrogate others’ work. Your curiosity also extends to your own work—you aren’t defensive when your research comes under scrutiny.

• You routinely think about and surface the value judgments, background knowledge, and strategic commitments that undergird your work. You understand the potential effects of mistaken mental models, so you strive to improve yours and your team’s.

• You dislike it when people express strong confidence in views that don’t seem to rely on commensurate evidence. You carefully and legibly communicate about your confidence levels.

• You appreciate the value of an excellent reputation and strong relationships. You can moderate your directness and intensity when you’re communicating with external folks.

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