GiveWell’s mission is to help people in need as much as we can by researching the most cost‑effective ways to save and improve lives, sharing our work openly, and directing donations to the programs we believe will do the most good. Our work, which focuses on global health and well-being, 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. We anticipate our total grantmaking is likely to approach or even exceed $1 billion this year, and we are working toward a future that could be several times that scale. Through years of deliberate groundwork, we’ve been growing our research capacity and scope in order to direct substantially more funding to the most impactful opportunities we can find.
The Role
We’re looking for a Senior Accountant to own complex accounting areas at GiveWell, primarily focused on revenue reconciliation and grants recognition. You’ll bring deep expertise to complex reconciliations, serve as a thought partner to our Controller on process improvements, and act as a mentor to junior staff—all in service of an organization that moves large amounts of money conscientiously and transparently. You’ll be joining our growing Finance team and reporting directly to our Controller.
Why we’re hiring this role right now
GiveWell has grown from directing $1.5 million in 2010 to directing more than $400 million in 2025, and we’re building our finance team to match that scale and prepare for additional growth in the coming years. Our Controller joined earlier this year, and we’re now making the team’s foundational hires to shift from outside contractors to a strong in-house finance team.
Specific duties include:
- Owning revenue reconciliation. You’ll reconcile donations from several payment platforms including bank deposits, securities, and cryptocurrency to a CRM system for the purpose of general ledger uploads and ultimately regranting to charities.
- Preparing the quarterly grants reconciliation. You’ll perform our quarterly reconciliation from the general ledger to our grants database, which ensures liabilities are accurately recorded, grants are correctly attributed by grantee, funds are allocated properly from our Top Charities and All Grants Funds, and that our net asset rollforward reconciles.
- Assisting with higher-complexity close processes. You’ll participate in close processes beyond revenue and grants by reconciling investments and recording entries for more complex areas such as lease amortization, intercompany grants, and accrued vacation.
- Supporting audit and tax compliance. You’ll draft portions of the financial statements and related footnotes, prepare Form 990 support documents, and work closely with our auditors and 990 preparers alongside the Controller.
- Driving process improvement. You’ll help update our workflows, particularly around the grants reconciliation process, serving as a thought partner to the Controller on how we build a more efficient and scalable finance function.
- Mentoring the Staff Accountant. You’ll serve as a go-to resource and sounding board as they grow in their role.
About You
The strongest candidates will have 4+ years of experience owning and improving technical accounting workstreams, such as revenue reconciliation, fund accounting, and financial reporting.
We expect that high-quality candidates will have all of the characteristics listed below:
- 4+ years of financial/accounting experience
- Experience with US-based non-profit accounting, such as fund accounting
- Expert Excel skills. You always know when there is a formula to be used, you are a pivot table pro, and you leverage conditional formatting, filters, and other tools to make your work efficient and legible
- Proficiency with:
- Common accounting systems (we currently use Sage Intacct, Salesforce, and Bill.com)
- Supporting financial audits, including supporting drafting financial statement footnotes
- Preparing and reviewing 990s
- Comfort exercising independent judgment on technical accounting questions and knowing when to escalate
- Highly organized. You’re meticulous in how you prepare, document, and track your work. You love a close checklist and clear documented procedures for each workstream
- Strong detail orientation. You bring accuracy and care to your work
- Curiosity. You’re always trying to understand how a process can be improved and take initiative to do it
- Strong communication. You write and speak legibly and accurately, calibrated to your audience
We also think these preferred characteristics will help you do well in the role at GiveWell:
- Alignment with our values and passion about GiveWell’s mission
- Experience in both public accounting (Big 4 or similar) and nonprofit or mission-driven organizations
- Licensed CPA
- Experience mentoring or informally supporting junior staff
- Comfort working cross-functionally with non-finance colleagues and communicating complex accounting concepts clearly to non-accountants
Details
- Compensation:
- NYC or the San Francisco Bay Area: $135,500
- All other US locations: $123,000
- International: Similar to the “all other U.S. locations” salary, based on historical exchange rates and delivered in locally denominated currency.
- Location: GiveWell’s staff work primarily remotely within the US and abroad. This position is eligible to work fully remotely.
- Offices: You are welcome but not required to work from our offices in Oakland, California; Brooklyn, NYC; or London, UK. We’ll cover relocation expenses for candidates who wish to move to work in-person in NYC or Oakland.
- International work: Although we strongly prefer US-based candidates for this role, we are open to exceptional candidates in Canada or the United Kingdom on a case-by-case basis. A successful candidate will need to commit to a work schedule that has some overlap with American working hours and the schedules of key coworkers.
- Flexibility: We support and encourage flexible working, including flexible hours, working remotely, and working from the office when you choose. The majority of our staff, including senior management, work flexibly in one way or another.
- Visa sponsorship: If you are already working in the United States on a work visa and wish to remain in the US, we’ll do our best to sponsor it. For this role, we can currently only hire team members based in the UK, Canada, or the United States who have prior work authorization. Please note that government entities and policies ultimately dictate our ability to sponsor visas.
- Benefits: A few highlights of our benefits offerings:
- Fully funded health, dental, vision, and life insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the US for you and any dependents)
- Four weeks of paid time off per year plus an annual summer break
- 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave
- Ergonomic home workstations or coworking space memberships
- 403(b) retirement plan for US team members
- Automatic contribution equal to 5% of your gross salary into your 403(b) retirement plan (for US based staff)
- Travel: GiveWell hosts “Visit Weeks” twice a year in our Oakland, California office and up to two annual departmental retreats. Attending these in-person opportunities will be important to fulfilling the goals of this role. Occasional additional travel may be helpful for conferences or recruiting events
- Start date: We’d like a candidate to start as soon as possible after receiving an offer, but we’ll offer flexibility for candidates whose personal or professional circumstances require them to moderately delay their start date
- Application deadline: We don’t currently have an application deadline. If that changes, we’ll update the posting. We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so we recommend applying as soon as possible
Key questions
We expect you may want to know the answers to the following questions before you apply:
What is the Finance team like at GiveWell?
We approach accounting as more than keeping the books. It’s how GiveWell demonstrates the integrity and transparency that our donors and grantees rely on. We are at an exciting and important moment: building out the processes and systems that will allow our finance function to operate with accuracy and efficiency at scale. You’ll not only execute core accounting work with care and attention to detail, but also help us envision and build a better function, identifying where we can streamline, improve, and do things smarter as we grow.
You’ll own meaningful work from day one, contributing to close processes, fund accounting, audit preparation, and more, all in service of an organization that moves large amounts of money carefully and transparently. This role is cross-functional by nature: you’ll need to communicate clearly with non-finance colleagues, navigate a growing and evolving organization, and look for ways to improve those processes and relationships as we build out the function.
Our finance team is currently small but growing. We’re hiring a Senior Accountant and Staff Accountant, who will work alongside external contractors and our Controller to ensure the function operates with the accuracy and transparency GiveWell is known for.
How does this role interact with other teams at GiveWell?
Due to this role’s focus on donation and grants reconciliation, you’ll work closely with other Operations teams such as Gift Processing and Grants Administration. You may also collaborate with colleagues on Research Operations, Legal, and Philanthropy. This gives you the opportunity to learn from other teams and collaborate on process improvements outside of the Finance team.
Who would do well in this role?
You take pride in accuracy and find genuine satisfaction in getting the details right. You’re proactive, take ownership of your work, and thrive in a collaborative, evolving team. You’re a fast learner who can navigate ambiguity and help improve processes as the organization grows. You have a low-ego approach: you welcome feedback and care more about getting it right than being right. You’re aligned with GiveWell's mission and values.
What are some reasons I may not like this role?
This role may not be a good fit if you prefer a highly structured environment with rigid processes and clear answers at all times. If you’re uncomfortable with open-ended projects or shifting priorities, or if cross-functional collaboration and supporting internal stakeholders isn’t something you enjoy, this role may not be the right match. Additionally, GiveWell embraces a culture of ongoing, direct feedback that isn’t limited to formal performance review cycles or filtered through a single reporting relationship. If you’re only comfortable receiving feedback in structured, periodic settings, GiveWell may not be the right fit for you.
What does growth look like in this role?
GiveWell’s finance function is still being built, and your growth will be tied directly to that. As the team and organization scale, you’ll have increasing opportunities to take on more complex and strategic projects, such as owning a process end-to-end, leading a system improvement, or taking on additional technical areas. For those interested, there may be a path toward a management role as the team expands, but there isn’t currently a set timeframe for that. In the meantime, there’s no shortage of opportunities to deepen your expertise, own meaningful improvements, have a real impact on GiveWell’s mission, and help shape a best-in-class nonprofit finance function.
What does the hiring process for this position entail?
We’ll use a combination of interviews and a work trial to assess the qualities described above.
Our basic plan for the hiring process is listed below. If you move to step 2, you’ll be in touch with a member of our recruiting team who will quickly answer any questions about logistics and timelines.
- Submit your application below. You don’t need to write a cover letter—we deliberately turned off the cover letter upload field; we only need you to answer our application questions.
- 30-minute introductory conversation with our Talent Acquisition Team
- Take-home assessment
- 90-minute interview with GiveWell’s Controller (the manager for this role)
- 75-minute values interview
- 30- to 45-minute interview with GiveWell’s Chief Operations Officer
- Reference checks
- Offer
About GiveWell
GiveWell is dedicated to finding and evaluating highly cost-effective global health and development opportunities, and we publish all the work, reasoning, and uncertainties behind our funding decisions. Our giving funds enable donors to contribute to the most impactful and cost-effective programs our researchers identify.
GiveWell is one of the world’s largest private funders of global development efforts. Trusted annually by tens of thousands of donors, GiveWell searches for highly cost-effective programs that save or improve lives the most. Since 2007, more than 150,000 donors have given over $2.6 billion through GiveWell to the most promising programs its research has identified, which we estimate will save more than 340,000 lives.
GiveWell is most well-known for recommending a small number of Top Charities, which currently support seasonal malaria chemoprevention, insecticide-treated nets, vaccine incentivization, and vitamin A supplementation. However, most of our research capacity and grantmaking is devoted to cost-effective opportunities outside of those programs.
GiveWell grants have:
We make our reasoning public and transparent so others can challenge it (sometimes we even pay people to point out our errors). We go to unusual lengths to check our assumptions and assess our impact, including funding research to address our uncertainties and gathering independent monitoring and evaluation data about the programs we support. We change our minds when the evidence demands it. For more about GiveWell, listen to Ezra Klein’s recent interview with GiveWell’s co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld.
Additional information
We don’t want to miss candidates that could do great things at GiveWell. Practically, that means a GiveWell staff member reviews every application carefully, considering the whole picture of your background and potential. If you’re on the fence about applying because you meet some but not 100% of our preferred qualifications (some studies suggest this hesitation is especially common for women and people of color), we encourage you to apply anyway.
GiveWell is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer by choice. At minimum, this means that we comply with all federal, state, and local EEO and employment laws. Beyond the requirements of those laws, we value our team’s diversity in all respects, and we desire to maintain a work environment free of harassment or discrimination—we want our team members to thrive at GiveWell. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, contact us at careers@givewell.org. We will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
By submitting an application, you acknowledge that you have read and consent to GiveWell's Privacy Statement for Applicants. By completing an application exercise, you acknowledge and assent to GiveWell's Work Trial Policy.
