Research Analyst

GiveWell is a research organization that identifies and funds cost-effective giving opportunities, focusing on global health and well-being. Our work 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.The roleAs a Research Analyst on GiveWell's Commons team, you will support our broader research team in identifying cost-effective giving opportunities. Your work will contribute to GiveWell’s decisions about how hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent to save and improve the lives of people living in the lowest-income communities in the world. You will also play a key role in fulfilling our commitment to transparency and ensuring that the work we produce is accurate and high quality.You will contribute to our work in a variety of ways, including:Quality checking pages we publish about our work and spreadsheets that we rely on to inform our decision makingWriting public summaries of the reasoning behind our grant decisionsAnswering defined research questions via desk research (for example, "What options does a maize farmer in Malawi have for selling their product?" or "How difficult is it for adults in rural Mozambique to purchase basic health commodities like chlorine tablets or insecticide treated nets?")Summarizing results from the monitoring and evaluation reports that grantees send usUpdating our cost-effectiveness analyses to reflect new information or analysis performed by other research staffExploring ways to use AI tools to increase the efficiency and quality of our team's workProviding occasional project management support (more detail below)Why this role may not be the right fitWe want to be transparent about what this position entails so you can make an informed decision about whether it's right for you:This is an entry-level research position. For your first year, you'll primarily conduct vetting work—rigorously checking the work outputs of more senior research team members for accuracy and clarity. You won’t be driving strategic decisions or leading major research initiatives.Your projects will be assigned rather than self-generated. Senior researchers and program officers will determine your work priorities (typically vetting and well-defined research tasks) based on team needs. You'll have opportunities to share ideas and contribute to scoping discussions, but you won't set research strategy or have autonomy over your research agenda in this role.You won't specialize in a single grantmaking area. We're looking for generalists who can contribute across our grantmaking teams. You'll develop deep analytical skills through vetting, but you won't become "the malaria person" or focus exclusively on one cause area or intervention type.If this sounds exciting to you—if you want to spend at least a year becoming excellent at rigorous vetting work and gaining familiarity with the fundamentals of GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness analyses—then this role could be a great fit. But if you're primarily motivated by strategic influence, specialization, or project ownership, you might want to wait for a more senior opportunity.Team structureOur research team is organized into subteams that each focus on a specific area of our grantmaking (malaria, water quality, vaccinations, etc.). The Commons team is external to these subteams; we provide shared and flexible research capacity so we can direct our effort toward the highest priority areas at a given time. As a Research Analyst on the Commons team, you will have opportunities to learn about and contribute to investigations across research subteams, giving you a breadth of knowledge about GiveWell's work. You may also have opportunities to temporarily embed in a subteam for the duration of a grant investigation or other project. During these periods, in addition to the research work noted above, you may be asked to help with the project management of research investigations, which can include tasks like maintaining our information management systems, keeping track of progress and checking in with relevant stakeholders as needed, scheduling and taking notes during calls with external contacts, and generally driving our investigations forward. In some cases, we expect that Research Analysts who are excelling in their role will be embedded permanently in a grantmaking subteam.Role details and benefitsTeam: You’ll report to the Commons Lead or Commons Coordinator.Compensation: We share upfront information about our compensation for every role. We set compensation based on internal leveling and external benchmarking, and we typically do not negotiate compensation at the offer stage.NYC or the San Francisco Bay Area: $108,800All other U.S. locations: $98,600UK and Canada: We'll convert the non-NYC/Bay area salary into local currency using historical USD exchange rates.Location: GiveWell staff primarily work remotely within the United Stat