Finance and Compliance Manager

Key information

Apply here until Sunday, 13 September 2026.

Role: Full time.

Location: Remote (Europe, UK, USA, Canada), or in-person at London, UK. We can sponsor UK work visa for exceptional candidates.

Compensation:

• For UK: £105,268 - £122,690 + 10% unconditional pension contribution
• For US: $157,718 - $183,821 + up to 3.5% 401(k) match
• For Canada: CAD 219,712 - CAD 243,880 + up to 3.5% RRSP match
• For Europe: €121,314 - €134,658 + employer pension contributions in line with local statutory requirements

If our posted compensation would meaningfully affect your decision to apply, we'd encourage you to apply anyway and flag it in your application. We’re happy to discuss compensation in more detail before an offer if it would affect your decision.

Ideal start date: As soon as possible.

 

About SAIF 

The Safe AI Forum (SAIF) is a US 501(c)(3) dedicated to driving global coordination that minimises extreme AI risks and ensures the benefits of AI are shared by all. We specialise in international AI governance—fostering coordination, cooperation, and communication across non-state actors and governments in the most important AI jurisdictions.

Our work focuses on building a trans-Pacific ecosystem of high-trust dialogue on extreme risk and international coordination, identifying the most important and tractable international governance interventions through research, and providing advisory services to key stakeholders. Our flagship programme (the International Dialogues on AI Safety) brings together senior computer scientists and AI governance experts from multiple jurisdictions to collaborate on AI risk, and we also run workshops and working groups.

We're a team of 16 based across the UK, Europe, and North America. Over the next 12-18 months, SAIF will double in staff size, launch and expand programmes, and grow our impact substantially. We're impact-focused and move quickly, balancing rigour with speed and taking genuine ownership of outcomes. Our culture is warm and collaborative. People make time for each other and assume good intentions, even while working at pace on high-stakes problems.

 

About the role

Build the finance and compliance systems SAIF needs as we grow

We’re hiring a Finance & Compliance Manager to own and strengthen SAIF’s Finance & Compliance function as we scale. You'll work directly with our Head of Operations, Harsimrandeep Malhi, and sit alongside the three other functions in Operations: Recruiting, People Operations, and Business Operations.

Most of your work will sit across finance, compliance, and multi-entity operations. This is complex work that requires good judgement and the ability to work well with external stakeholders like accountants and lawyers.

This is a high-impact role for someone who enjoys working across finance, compliance, and the systems that connect them. We are establishing our UK entity and this role would be expected to take on the complexity of operating across multiple jurisdictions. We're looking for someone mid-career (typically 3–6 years of relevant experience) who is excited by SAIF's mission and its impact.

We’re a growing organisation, and our financial and compliance needs and priorities will change. The right candidate will see this as energising—someone who finds purpose in the mission and is willing to adapt and build alongside us rather than needing a well-defined role.

 

What you'll do

The responsibilities below reflect our current best estimate:

• Finances
  • Manage financial operations: Manage the relationship with our accountants, ensure monthly close runs smoothly, and maintain clear visibility into SAIF's financial position.
  • Run payroll and EOR administration: Own payroll processing across our jurisdictions, and administer the financial side of our EOR relationship (Deel) and staff benefits. You'll coordinate with People Operations, who own the employee-facing side.
  • Manage banking and treasury: Administer our bank accounts and payment platforms, manage cash across entities including US–UK transfers, and have clear visibility into our cash position and runway. Make sure our reserves earn a sensible return without putting capital or day-to-day liquidity at risk, within the approved investment policy.
  • Coordinate expense and invoice processing: Review and approve routine expenses, ensure accurate coding, and maintain clean financial records.
  • Coordinate audit and tax filings: Coordinate with external vendors on annual financial audit, Form 990 filing, UK tax filings, and charitable solicitation renewals.

• Budgeting & Funder Finance
  • Own the budgeting process: Run the annual budget and periodic forecasts, and provide programme leads and leadership with budget-vs-actuals visibility.
  • Manage funder reporting: Prepare financial reports for funders and ensure accurate, timely grant tracking.
  • Support funding requests: Support leadership in gathering future needs from team leads and translating them into the financial asks required for grant requests.

• Compliance & Legal Coordination
  • Run the compliance calendar: Track and manage corporate and financial filing deadlines across our jurisdictions, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
  • Own corporate compliance: Manage our registered agent relationships, state registrations, and corporate filings to keep our entities in good standing.
  • UK entity administration: Support the initial setup and own ongoing compliance requirements of our planned UK entity, such as Companies House filings, filing annual accounts, and coordination with UK advisers.
  • Multi-entity compliance: Manage financial consolidation, inter-entity transfers, and related compliance across multiple entities
  • Manage corporate insurance: Own SAIF’s corporate insurance policies and keep all renewals on the compliance calendar.

• Financial Systems & Infrastructure
  • Own finance tooling and workflows: Select, set up, and maintain the financial operations tools and processes, including accounting software, expense management, invoice processing, budget requests, and grant tracking. 
  • Improve financial processes: Strengthen approvals, reimbursements, vendor payments, and month-end routines as we double in size and add a UK entity.
  • Strengthen financial controls: Help design and maintain the internal controls, signing authority practices, and documentation that ensure SAIF can stand up to audits and funder scrutiny.
  • Support special projects: Contribute to special projects where financial or compliance judgement is needed, like new entity setup, budgeting for convenings, or working out the financial requirements for new projects.

• New areas as we grow
  • Take on new areas as SAIF grows: As the organisation grows, new finance and compliance needs will emerge—for example grant disbursement, new entity structures, or more complex funder requirements. You’ll help work out what’s needed, put the right processes in place, and potentially manage them longer term.

About you

There is no single background that predicts success in this role. We strongly encourage applications from candidates who don't tick every box. If you are excited about this role and think you would be great at it, we want to hear from you, even if your background doesn't perfectly match our list. 

We care most about judgement, reliability, ability to learn quickly, and commitment to the mission. We expect strong candidates will have several of the following strengths:

• Essential requirements
  • Mission alignment: You're genuinely motivated by reducing AI risks and supporting global coordination on it.
  • Relevant professional experience: Typically 3–6 years in operations, finance, nonprofit administration, special projects, or similar roles. Experience in fast-growing or early-stage organisations is particularly valuable.
  • Comfort with financial operations: You can read a P&L, understand basic accounting concepts, and manage relationships with bookkeepers and accountants effectively. You don’t need to be a qualified accountant, but numbers shouldn’t intimidate you.
  • Comfort building from scratch: You can take an unclear finance or compliance problem, work out what is needed, and put a practical process in place.
  • Strong organisational skills and attention to detail: You catch the typos others miss, track many threads simultaneously, and build systems so nothing gets dropped.
  • Strong judgement: You know when to solve something independently and when to escalate.
  • Clear communication: You communicate clearly and concisely. You explain your thinking clearly, including the assumptions behind your decisions.
  • Service orientation: You genuinely enjoy enabling others' success and find satisfaction in behind-the-scenes work that amplifies team impact.
• Strong preferences
  • Nonprofit or multi-entity experience: You have worked with nonprofit finances, charity compliance, or organisations operating across multiple jurisdictions.
  • UK compliance knowledge: Familiarity with UK company compliance (Companies House, UK accounting standards) is highly valuable.
  • Experience with external advisors: You have worked with accountants, lawyers, or other professional services and know how to manage those relationships effectively.
• Nice-to-have
  • Familiarity with the AI safety and/or effective altruism ecosystem.
  • Comfort with operational tools (accounting software, project management systems, etc).

Why you might be excited about this role

• You want to meaningfully reduce catastrophic AI risks.
• You enjoy building and scaling structures and systems.
• You find satisfaction in increasing organisational effectiveness.
• You like learning new skills and solving a wide variety of problems.
• You want to be part of an agentic team where your work directly shapes organisational capacity.

Why this role might not be for you

• You prefer highly specialised, narrowly scoped work.
• You want a very large team with lots of existing processes.
• You find context-switching frustrating rather than energising.
• You want work that is primarily technical or research-focused.

We're trying to be transparent about what the work is actually like. It means balancing several priorities at once, and building systems from scratch while keeping day-to-day financial operations running. The work is demanding and unglamorous. If the mission matters to you, we think it's worth it.

Other details 

• Start date: We expect to make an offer as soon as we find the right match, with a preferred start date as soon as possible. We understand that some candidates may need longer to exit existing commitments. If this timeline doesn’t work for you, please err on the side of applying anyway and let us know in your application in case we can make alternate arrangements.
• Benefits:
  • Unlimited PTO (no less than statutory entitlement in your jurisdiction, and minimum 20 days annually encouraged)
  • Comprehensive health insurance
  • Annual wellness budget of $6500
  • Annual childcare budget of $6500
  • Annual professional development support of $6500
  • Home-office setup and equipment budget of $1200
  • In-person team building events

Budgets are stated in USD and paid as the equivalent in your local currency.

• Working arrangements:
  • Remote or in-person in London, UK
  • Some meaningful overlap with Eastern time zone for collaboration
  • International travel required for team events and convenings (~2-4 times per year)
• Diversity: We aim to employ people with many different experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds who share our mission. We are committed to creating an environment where all employees have the opportunity to succeed, regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity, marital or civil partnership status, or any other protected characteristic.
• Requests for accommodation: If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact careers@saif.org.

Application process

To apply, please fill in this application form by 11:59 PM local time on 13 September, Sunday.

Early applications are encouraged as we will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis. The application process will vary depending on the candidate profile, but is likely to include written work and interview components, and potentially a work trial. We offer payment for work samples and trials, conditional on your location.

If you have questions about this role, please contact careers@saif.org.

Apply Here