Who we are

We’re focused on helping people create a better future for humanity. We do this by designing and running courses on some of the world’s most pressing problems, and providing engaging and action-guiding experiences for individuals and organisations that want to make a positive difference.

BlueDot Impact was founded in August 2022 in Cambridge, UK, and grew out of a non-profit supporting students at the University of Cambridge to pursue high-impact careers. Our courses quickly gained traction, as many of the challenges facing students at the university were also faced by students and professionals worldwide. To learn more about our company’s story, check out this podcast interview with Dewi, one of our founding team members.

We currently run the world’s largest courses on AI Safety, with a graduate community of over 2,000 individuals working in all the major AI companies, top universities and governments. The course is widely regarded as the go-to location to learn about AI Alignment, and the AI Safety Fundamentals website has over 10,000 unique visitors each month. We are keen to use these capabilities to benefit the biosecurity field as we do AI Safety.

Over the last three months, we have run a successful pilot of the Biosecurity Fundamentals: Pandemics Course, with over 100 medical, public health and synthetic biology experts from across the world. We are excited for you to take this success to the next level in empowering thousands of people a build a pandemic-proof world in an age of rapidly advancing AI and synthetic biology capabilities.

During the first 6 months of 2024, we will:

• Ship a new iteration of our courses every month to generate faster organisational learning and support more students (up from every 3-4 months in 2023);
• Pilot new initiatives to increase the proportion of students taking impactful actions after graduating our courses; and
• Build on our existing relationships with teams in the UK Government to support their AI Safety work, including the UK Office for AI and the UK’s AI Safety Institute.

What you'll do

We’re looking for a biosecurity specialist to shape the future of BlueDot Impact’s pandemic preparedness offerings. You will utilise BlueDot’s capabilities in course design, delivery and our expert relationships to create and deploy learning experiences which equip global decision-makers to build a pandemic-proof future.

In the first 6 months, you will:

• Work with top biosecurity researchers and policymakers to refine the goals and narrative of the Pandemics course;
• Design a world-class learning experience for students on the Pandemics course, applying insights from the research into effective learning;
• Identify and prioritise the top biosecurity interventions, design research projects to address their key bottlenecks and direct course participants to take concrete steps into the biosecurity field by tackling these real-world challenges; and
• Collaborate with our community of facilitators to continuously improve the course based on user experience and feedback.

After that, you will:

• Research the highest priorities for our graduate community’s further learning, such as deep dives into specific biosecurity interventions;
• Build partnerships with top experts, government departments and companies to design more advanced courses;
• Help to scale our courses by identifying niche target audiences and contributing to marketing campaigns.

About you

We are looking for someone who is actively engaged with biosecurity and pandemic preparedness and is motivated to create excellent learning experiences that support the next generation of researchers, policymakers and biosecurity entrepreneurs.

You might be a particularly good for this role if you have:

• Experience working in the fields of biosecurity, pandemic preparedness, public health or similar.
• Written about, or conducted research on, topics related to biosecurity or pandemic preparedness, and enjoy communicating with large audiences.
• Built relationships with individuals across the biosecurity, public health and synthetic biology ecosystem, and you feel excited to deepen those relationships.
• A basic understanding of disease epidemiology and the technical basis for a range of biosecurity interventions.
• Created educational courses or learning experiences on any topic, especially using “active learning” techniques.
• Been a teacher or teaching assistant at university, and felt motivated to improve the quality of learning of your students.

We encourage speculative applications; we expect many strong candidates will not meet all of the criteria listed here.

Location and compensation

We’re based in London, and we accept applications from all countries. We can sponsor UK visas. We have a strong preference for individuals who can move to London, though we will consider remote-first for exceptional candidates.

Compensation is based on your experience and relevant industry benchmarks, and will likely fall within £60-80k.

Apply for this role

The application process consists of five stages:

• Stage 1: Initial application (<20 minutes).
• Stage 2: Work test (2 hours).
• Stage 3: Interview (45 mins).
• Stage 4:  Work trial (~1 day).
• Stage 5: Reference checks.

We’re evaluating candidates on a rolling basis and we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.