Staff Accountant
About Us
FAR.AI is a non-profit AI research institute working to ensure advanced AI is safe and beneficial for everyone. Our mission is to facilitate breakthrough AI safety research, advance global understanding of AI risks and solutions, and foster a coordinated global response.
Since our founding in July 2022, we've grown to 50+ staff, published 40+ academic papers, and convened leading AI safety events. Our work is recognized globally, with publications at premier venues such as NeurIPS, ICML including a Best Paper Honorable Mention in 2026, and ICLR, and features in the Financial Times, Nature News, Wired Magazine and MIT Technology Review. We conduct pre-deployment testing on behalf of frontier developers such as OpenAI, independent evaluations for governments including the EU AI Office, and publish the AI Security Leaderboard based on our red-teaming expertise. We help steer and grow the AI safety field through developing research roadmaps with renowned researchers such as Yoshua Bengio; running FAR.Labs, an AI safety-focused co-working space in Berkeley housing 40+ members; and supporting the community through targeted grants to technical researchers.
The Role
We are hiring our first in-house accountant to build our internal capacity as we scale the organization. Over the next 12–18 months, this role will be critical in helping FAR.AI grow to roughly triple its current size while expanding to new geographies and entities.
Reporting to the Head of Finance, this is a hands-on, full-cycle role suited for an experienced accountant who is comfortable operating independently, managing multiple concurrent bodies of work, and has worked in dynamic work environments, covering many roles across accounting and financial operations.
Why This Role / Why Now
FAR.AI is entering a pivotal phase of growth, backed by over $100M in funding and expanding opportunities to shape how advanced AI systems are developed and governed. Our work spans technical research, policy, and operations, including partnerships, such as red-teaming frontier models with leading AI companies and governments. As the scope and impact of our work accelerate, we are building operations capacity to better support and enable the organization.
As FAR.AI's first in-house accountant, you will lay the financial foundation that enables everything we do, from funding AI safety research and events to expanding into new geographies. You will own the day-to-day accounting operations while improving the systems, controls, and processes that will scale with us. This means you won't just be keeping the books, you'll be shaping how a mission-critical organization manages its finances during a pivotal period of growth.
For accountants who enjoy autonomy, building, solving problems, and care about long-term societal impact, this is a rare and meaningful opportunity.
If this sounds like you, then we would love to hear from you!
Key Responsibilities
Own the full accounting cycle
Lead month-end and year-end close processes, preparing and reviewing journal entries, accruals, and account reconciliations
Maintain accurate general ledger records for a U.S. non-profit with international staff & operations, including an entity in Singapore
Support grant and fund accounting, including tracking restricted and unrestricted funding, preparing grant financial reports, and ensuring compliance with donor requirements
Assist in the preparation of monthly, quarterly, and annual financial statements and management reports for leadership and the board
Coordinate with external accountants, auditors, and tax preparers
Partner with the Head of Finance and the Finance Manager to develop and document accounting policies, internal controls, and financial processes suited to a scaling organization
Support financial operations of the organization, as needed
Respond to ad hoc financial analysis and reporting requests from program teams, leadership, and external stakeholders
Must-Have Qualifications
5+ years of hands-on accounting experience, with demonstrated ownership of full-cycle accounting responsibilities