Chief of Staff

Role Overview

Encode is at a pivotal moment. We're a small team punching well above our weight on the most consequential technology policy questions of the decade — and over the next eighteen months we expect to roughly triple in size. Like any small organization scaling fast, we bottleneck on leadership bandwidth. We're interested in hearing from people who could serve as a Chief of Staff: someone whose entire job is to increase the leverage and effectiveness of our executive directors — extending their reach, sharpening their decisions, and making sure the things they commit to actually happen.

What you'd own

• Executive leverage. Manage what reaches your ED's desk and what doesn't. Track their commitments and open decisions, drive them to closure, and make sure nothing important dies in an inbox.
• Special projects. Take on ambiguous, high-stakes work that has no natural owner — a new initiative, a sensitive partner question, a time-boxed opportunity — and come back with it done. This is the core of the job: being handed something amorphous and returning with a finished product.
• Strategy support. Turn scattered thinking into decision-ready memos. Pressure-test plans before they ship. Help run our planning rhythm so strategy gets made deliberately rather than by default.
• Meeting preparation and follow-through. Prep your EDs for high-stakes meetings — funders, coalition partners, legislators, press — and own everything that happens after the meeting ends.
• Internal alignment. Make sure the team knows what leadership is thinking and why. As we grow, keep communication working across a bigger organization: all-hands, cross-team coordination, and the connective tissue in between.
• Standing in. Represent your EDs where they can't be, with the judgment to know which calls to make on the spot and which to bring back.

Who we're looking for

• You have previous experience working directly for a principal — a chief of staff at another organization, a senior campaign role, an early employee supporting a founder, or similar.
• You're high-agency and low-ego. You get genuine satisfaction from making someone else more effective, and you don't need your name on the output.
• You exercise excellent judgment and total discretion. You'll see everything — personnel, funding, strategy — and be trusted with all of it.
• You write extremely well and quickly. Much of this job is turning a half-formed conversation into a document someone can act on.
• You care about AI policy and share our conviction that this technology needs real guardrails.
• You feel excited about the nature of the work and are ready to work hard to make good policy happen.

Compensation, benefits, and location

This role is based in Washington, D.C. The salary range is $160,000–$220,000, commensurate with experience. Some travel should be expected alongside our executive directors.

Encode also offers a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• 100% of healthcare, vision, and dental insurance premiums covered for employees, 50% for spouses and dependents
• Unlimited PTO and ~20 office holidays, including all federal holidays and the week between Christmas and New Year's Day
• 401(k) retirement plan with 6% unconditional employer contribution

Referrals welcome! We offer a $5,000 bonus for successful referrals who are hired and complete their first 90 days.

Note on Legal Restrictions: Some responsibilities may involve activities such as administering or supporting political action committees (PACs). Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from administering PACs. Permanent residence may be required for certain hires.

About Encode AI

Encode AI advocates for responsible AI development that serves the public interest. We've helped shape major AI policy wins across the federal and state level, including Illinois's SB 315, New York's RAISE Act, the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, and America's first nuclear weapons AI safeguards. We also hold the industry accountable through other strategic advocacy, including our amicus brief and coalition letter that contributed to the OpenAI nonprofit retaining oversight of the for-profit company.

Our specialty is converting smart policy ideas into action and getting them across the finish line through coalition building, political strategy, and hands-on advocacy. We strive to find common ground with organizations from across the political spectrum, including think tanks, organized labor, parents' groups, and faith leaders.