about the job
The greatest waste of our time is the waste of talent. There are millions of people who once had the ambition to do great things with their career, but got stuck in jobs that don't make the world better.
The School for Moral Ambition helps people turn their ideals into action. We run fellowships, community programs, and campaigns that empower talented people to work on the world's most pressing problems, from ending factory farming to fighting the tobacco industry and advancing tax fairness.
We believe that moral ambition, the drive to be one of the best but measured by different standards of success, can become a cultural force. We're not driven by guilt, but by enthusiasm: we're simply excited about making the world a wildly better place. You can read our founding principles here.
about the role
Artificial intelligence is our newest cause, and Europe is where we work on it.
Whether the most powerful AI systems get built and used safely will not be settled in Europe alone. But Europe has more say in it than it currently uses. Every advanced AI chip in the world passes through machines built in the Netherlands. European rules reach well past the single market. And other middle powers are looking for partners who would rather not leave this to a handful of frontier labs and the governments closest to those companies.
Part of the European influence comes from tools and materials further along the supply chain, cloud and data center capacity, standards and evaluation, and access to the European market.
We also work on what Europe stands to lose. The scenarios that worry us most are AI-enabled attacks on public infrastructure, and dependencies deep enough to be used as leverage against Europe.
Other countries are also looking for partners who would rather not leave the future of AI to a handful of frontier labs and the governments closest to those companies. Some of the scenarios that worry us most are cybersecurity threats and economic dependencies deep enough to be used as leverage.
Our strategy rests on a set of claims about where Europe actually has leverage, and on a machine that gets the right people in the room at the right moment. Your job is to keep both of those honest and working.
We are hiring two people, this role and a Policy Expert. With them the team will be three, including Jan-Willem van Putten, who leads the program. You will work with Jan-Willem directly, in a self-managing organization where you shape and hold your own roles.
Key responsibilities
Testing the strategy
- Maintaining a live list of the claims our strategy depends on, and knowing which ones would change what we do if they turned out to be wrong.
- Following the research, publications, and developments that bear on those claims, and telling us what they mean rather than forwarding the link.
- Building working relationships with the think tanks and researchers covering these questions.
- Flagging when the evidence warrants revisiting a specific assumption, and proposing the concrete change rather than raising a concern.
The backend
You hold the machinery that makes the work possible, and you will have real ownership of it rather than a task list.
- Keeping our map of the people who set AI policy across the European institutions and member states accurate, structured, and actually used.
- Being the contact for the external partner building our relationship-management tooling, turning its output into usable rosters, and feeding requirements back.
- Producing shortlists that match the right contacts to a specific seat, moment, or audience on request.
- Drafting outreach, and monitoring where our coverage is thin against what the strategy needs.
- Organizing roundtables, closed-door dinners, and briefings: invitations, logistics, briefing packs, and follow-up.
- Keeping notes, decisions, and next steps somewhere colleagues can depend on.
What We’re looking for
- Two to four years of work experience after your studies. What you did matters more than where: research, policy, consulting, journalism, operations, or a startup can all be good preparation.
- Real knowledge of AI (policy), but also the confidence to use it in your work. You should be able to read a technical paper or a supply-chain analysis and tell us what it implies for our strategy.
- A track record of building or fixing a system, database, or process that other people then relied on, and the discipline to keep it current.
- Excellent written English. Other European languages are welcome but not required.
- Clear writing. You will produce first drafts that go to officials, funders, and journalists, and it needs to be readable by all three.
- Judgment about what belongs in public and what stays in the room, and the honesty to say when you are unsure. A lot of this work rests on trust with people who cannot be quoted.
- Alignment with our founding principles, and interest in a self-managing environment using tools like Holacracy and Getting Things Done.
Note: you should already have the right to work in the European Union, as we are not able to sponsor visas for this role.
We value talent and a can-do attitude above traditional credentials. Even if you don't meet every requirement, and especially if you think we might overlook something that would make you a good fit, we welcome you to push back and apply. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and non-traditional career paths. If you have questions about the role, email Jan-Willem directly at janwillem@moralambition.org.
What we offer
- €42,700–€46,900 gross annual salary, including 8% holiday allowance paid monthly. Where you land in the range follows our transparent salary framework, based on your relevant experience rather than negotiation, and your salary grows automatically each year through a fixed step plus an inflation correction.
- A role at the center of one of Europe's most ambitious nonprofits, on a question that will shape the continent for decades, with access to the people who set the direction.
- Unusual scope for the stage you are at. In a team of three, your analysis goes to the people making decisions without passing through four layers first.
- A self-managing environment with clear roles, freedom, and structure. We care about documentation, scalability, and automation, in line with the Action principle in Moral Ambition.
- Hybrid work setup, an office in the center of Amsterdam with a daily vegan lunch, and a workspace in Brussels.
- 30 days of paid holiday per calendar year, plus public holidays, which you can swap for another day off.
- A pension plan with an 8% employer contribution, growing to 12.9% in 2027 in line with CAO Sociaal Werk.
- Full coverage of your public transportation costs between home and work.
- Network opportunities: we will organize various touchpoints for you to meet people from The School for Moral Ambition, as well as our fellows and partners across Europe.
- A lot of fun. As we tried to convey in our founding principles: "We're not driven by feelings of guilt, but by sheer enthusiasm. We're simply excited about making the world a wildly better place, and about building a legacy that matters."
Application process
- Application Fill out the online form. No long motivation letter, just a few focused questions. We assess applications on a rolling basis. The form should not take longer than an hour or two.
- First-round conversations Two separate 30-minute online conversations, one with Jan-Willem and one with a colleague from elsewhere in The School. We schedule them back to back where we can, and each of us scores independently before we compare notes.
- Test task We invite the final candidates for a 2-3 hour online test task. We pay €100 for this
- References With your agreement, we speak to two references, at least one of whom managed you directly.
- Outcome and offer We call you first to walk through the offer, then send it in writing. You have five to seven days to respond.
