All six roles open

Different people bring time, expertise, capital or a network.

There is a defined role for each, and one coordinating spine holding them together. The founding group settles at fifteen to thirty people. The baseline ask is one to two hours a week for six months.

Pick your depth

Low lift

Open doors

Warm introductions to funders and Scientific Director candidates
Names for the Advisory Council
Compute credits through personal contacts
Pro-bono legal, accounting or office space
Critique of this charter before it hardens

Medium lift

Get hands dirty

2–3 hrs a week as a pod lead or anchor
Co-author or co-review the first papers
Mentor two or three juniors a quarter
Help write the first grant applications
Domain advisor for one track

Higher lift

Go all in

A twelve-month Research Lead role
The Program Manager role
Fundraising, or a founding patron commitment
An industry sabbatical or secondment
Co-apply for institutional grants

The six roles

Program Manager

Open

20–30 hrs/week or full-time · 12-month minimum

Reports to Steering Committee

The coordinating spine. Operations, not science, is the real bottleneck — so this role is filled before researchers are.

What the role does

Runs weekly stand-ups, monthly all-hands and quarterly reviews
Owns the volunteer lifecycle — intake, onboarding, check-ins, exits
Maintains the public scoreboard
Produces the monthly newsletter, quarterly digest and annual report
Keeps patrons briefed and coordinates milestone reports
Runs MoU follow-through; tracks compute and licences
First line for conflict-of-interest disclosures and escalations

What it is accountable for

Monthly written report to the Steering Committee
Quarterly volunteer satisfaction survey
Annual 360° review with the Council and researchers

Research Lead

Open

Full-time or substantial part-time · 12+ months

Reports to Scientific Director

Owns the scientific direction of one track, including the conditions under which that track gets shut down.

What the role does

Sets the experimental roadmap and the explicit kill criteria
First or senior author on flagship publications
Hires, mentors and reviews the researchers in their pod
Represents the work externally — talks, peer review, panels
Co-designs the Year 1 → Year 2 transition

What it is accountable for

Quarterly milestone review with the Scientific Director
Annual publication and artefact targets
Pod health metrics — retention, satisfaction, output
Co-signs every dataset and model release decision

Researcher

Open

Core: 20+ hrs/week, paid · Contributing: 5–15 hrs/week, volunteer · 6-month minimum

Reports to Research Lead

Does the work. Contributing researchers become eligible for paid core roles after sustained contribution — the path is real, not decorative.

What the role does

Runs experiments, builds datasets, writes code, drafts paper sections
Attends the weekly pod meeting and posts a weekly written update
Co-authors publications under the CRediT taxonomy
Core researchers own named sub-projects end to end

What it is accountable for

Weekly progress review with the pod lead
Two-strike norm on missed deliverables
Public contribution tracker visible to everyone
Authorship strictly by documented contribution

Advisor

Open

2–8 hrs/month · 1-year renewable

Reports to Three sub-mandates, held singly or together with disclosure

Light touch, high leverage. Scientific & Domain; Research Governance; IP & Commercialization.

What the role does

Scientific — reviews research plans and draft papers, attends quarterly review, opens doors to peers
Governance — sits on the Ethics & Review Committee, vets sensitive dataset and model releases, approves the COI policy
IP — defines open-source licensing policy, reviews partnerships for IP cleanliness, structures commercial pathways that stay open by default

What it is accountable for

Annual sign-off on research integrity practices
Disclosure and recusal where interests overlap

Patron

Open

Capital, compute credits or catalytic introductions · tiered

Reports to Scientific Director & Program Manager — no operational role

What a patron cannot do matters more than what they give. All of the following is written into the MoU.

What the role does

Provides capital, compute credits or warm introductions
Receives quarterly written updates and an annual briefing
Listed on the public donor wall, or anonymously by preference
Founding patrons may observe Steering Committee meetings

What it is accountable for

No editorial control over research output
Cannot direct hiring or specific research questions
All funds audited; annual conflict-of-interest disclosure
Standard gift acceptance and refusal policy applies

Affiliate

Open

Variable, time-boxed per engagement

Reports to Program Manager or sponsoring Research Lead

Visiting researchers, mentors, ambassadors and alumni. Every engagement ends with an explicit renewal or a graceful close.

What the role does

Visiting researchers co-author papers and contribute methods or data, 3–12 months
Mentors onboard new volunteers and run reading groups
Ambassadors host events at companies and campuses
Alumni stay engaged and mentor the next cohort

What it is accountable for

Engagement-specific MoU or letter of intent
Annual recognition in the public report
COI disclosure where an employer is involved

What we look for

The filter

High agency, defined precisely.

The ability to act without permission under structural or resource constraints — which distinguishes people who navigate ambiguity from people waiting for a mandate.

The question we actually ask is simpler. What have you done beyond yourself? One concrete example. Ran the marathon. Wrote the book. Helped someone at real cost to yourself. Stood your ground when it would have been easier not to.

Write to us Read the tracks first