Senior Program Associate (Talent)

Title: Senior Program Associate (Talent)

Salary: $90,000-$110,000+ (incl. healthcare and retirement contributions)

Location: In-person, Washington, DC; visa sponsorship available

Job Type: Full-time

Application Deadline: Sunday, February 8, 2026

The Horizon Institute for Public Service is seeking a full-time Senior Program Associate (Talent) to support the day-to-day operations of our talent programs. Each year, Horizon connects with thousands of job seekers looking to transition into emerging technology policy, and maintains relationships with hundreds of mentors and hiring managers across key agencies, offices, and organizations in the DC area. This role will help us run these programs smoothly: notifying candidates about relevant opportunities, maintaining our mentor network, triaging incoming advising requests, and supporting our team with research and follow-up. This role will amplify impact across Horizon’s various programs, supporting hundreds of emerging tech experts to launch and advance in policy careers each year.

Competitive applicants will likely have completed at least a bachelor's degree and have some relevant experience (part-time or full-time) in operations, research, or people-facing roles. If you think the role is a great fit for your skills and interests, we encourage you to apply even if you don't have previous experience in this exact field. Our hiring process is designed to test for aptitudes and skills, not specific resume markers or experience.

Our mission

The Horizon Institute for Public Service is a non-profit that supports the next generation of public servants with expertise in emerging technologies.

Emerging technologies, like biotechnology and artificial intelligence, are rapidly reshaping our world. The US government plays an essential role in developing and governing new technologies, crafting policies to take advantage of their benefits and avert the risks they pose. But policymakers' ability to stay ahead of the curve depends on access to the requisite expertise—and right now, that expertise is sorely lacking.

Since our launch three years ago, we've helped hundreds of professionals explore and launch critically needed careers in public service. For example, through our fellowship program, we’ve helped 100+ subject-matter experts fill vital roles at top think tanks, in Congress, and in agencies across government. Our online emergingtechpolicy.org career resource has reached 150,000+ users. We’ve also supported over 1,000 individuals through events and advising and headhunting services, leading to many dozens of job transitions. We participated in the first-ever government AI hiring fair and recently launched the AI Policy Leadership Network. We plan to both scale these existing programs and have several exciting new projects slated for launch in 2026. You can read more about our programs and impact in our 2025 year in review.

About the role

As the Senior Program Associate (Talent) at Horizon, you will develop deep knowledge of the emerging technology policy talent landscape while working as a key member of our tight-knit, high-performing team. You'll support our talent team to connect thousands of job seekers with career opportunities, maintain relationships with mentors and hiring managers across the DC policy ecosystem (including through supporting AI Policy Leadership Network programming), and help our programs run smoothly behind the scenes. You'll work closely with our Director of Talent, Ryan Remmel; Director of Talent Strategy, Abby Hoskin; and Director of Partnerships, Evan McVail, as well as other senior staff.

This position will strengthen your skills in program operations, stakeholder communication, and research while building an extensive professional network among DC policy practitioners. You’ll have a front row seat supporting hundreds of individuals to transition into emerging technology policy, and gain a detailed understanding of the different types of roles that exist in the field, which profiles thrive in which roles, and what signals hiring managers most care about when making decisions. For candidates with strong social and evaluative judgment, the role can expand to include substantive candidate evaluation and advising work. This role is an excellent platform for advancing to program management, talent and recruiting, or policy roles at high-impact nonprofits, think tanks, or in government.

Responsibilities

Lead implementation of our programs that connect candidates with opportunities at scale

Lead the implementation of our opportunity notifications program. Each year, we notify thousands of candidates in our network with personalized recommendations for upcoming emerging tech policy roles matching their backgrounds and interests—one of our highest-ROI programs for driving career transitions. As implementation lead, you’ll identify high-impact opportunities, operate our systems to send out personalized recommendations at scale, and collect feedback to improve the notifications program overall.

Manage our network of external advisors. Candidates often benefit from speaking with friendly contacts in the policy world, who can provide personalized advice, helpful introductions, and connections to opportunities. We maintain a network of dozens of mentors who volunteer for these conversations. You’ll manage and strengthen this network: checking in with mentors, updating their availability and profiles, ensuring our matching system runs smoothly, suggesting intros, and recruiting new mentors to fill gaps in candidate needs.

Expand our talent referral program. Horizon curates lists of excellent applicants and alumni across our programs to share with other organizations, creating additional pathways into policy for top candidates. You’ll ensure profiles of top talent are presented effectively, our lists are reaching other high-impact organizations, and you’re receiving feedback from peer organizations to improve this product over time.

Provide hands-on support for key programs and top talent

Provide implementation support for the AI Policy & Leadership Network (APLN). APLN is our recently launched program convening established professionals from across the AI policy landscape, including participants from the White House, Congress, think tanks, and leading AI companies. You’ll research potential speakers and site visits, field questions from applicants and participants, and serve as right-hand to the program lead for strategic program research questions

Enable headhunts for critical open roles. Hiring managers often reach out to Horizon with hard-to-fill positions, sometimes not publicly advertised, where our network is uniquely helpful. For a subset of the highest-impact roles, you’ll help generate candidate shortlists, conduct background research to assess whether candidates meet qualifications, and help Horizon staff put forward top recommendations.. Over time, you’ll also develop processes to make this research more efficient.

Support our career advising work. Each year, many hundreds of people approach Horizon for help navigating the emerging tech policy job market (far more than we can fully serve). You’ll evaluate incoming advising requests and identify the top candidates for further support from our team.

Track our relationships and impact

Ensure candidates and contacts are integrated into our talent database so they can benefit from all of Horizon’s programs. Each year we received thousands of candidate leads from partners, alumni, and peer organizations; making sure this data flows into our internal database means these candidates get access to notifications, advising, and events rather than falling through the cracks. You’ll also help us track our relationships across DC by keeping our CRM up to date with notes from calls, events, and team communications.

Support our impact tracking to understand where our impact is coming from. You’ll collect and analyze data on our highest-potential advisees, to understand what support we provided and what outcomes followed, to inform how we allocate our time and how we improve our programs.

Horizon has a strong culture of internal growth and supporting staff to take on additional responsibilities as needed. Depending on employee interest and organizational needs, you may over time also gain visibility into and contribute to other programmatic work (e.g., assessing applications to our programs, leading 1-on-1 career advising calls, contributing to our web content etc). Your manager will also support you to pursue professional development opportunities based on your professional development goals.

You may be a good fit if you

Communicate professionally in writing with diverse stakeholders

Thrive when juggling multiple projects that require context-switching

Are conscientious and have strong attention to detail. You take pride in getting the details right, even on routine work

Are motivated by enabling others' success; you find satisfaction in behind-the-scenes work that keeps programs running smoothly and helps others achieve direct impact

Are excited to refine your sense of what hiring managers value in candidates, including what skills and experiences make someone a good fit for different types of policy roles

Navigate digital platforms (Airtable, Notion, Slack, etc.) confidently and are open to leveraging AI tools to improve quality and automate manual processes

Have a demonstrated interest in public policy or emerging technology issues (prior experience not required so long as you are excited to learn rapidly on the job)

Additionally, Horizon has a strong team culture, and we expect you would fit well if you:

Are entrepreneurial and a team player, adapting to new responsibilities as our fast-growing organization’s needs may change over time

Are growth-minded and excited to give and receive regular feedback in order to maximize performance and impact across our team

Are motivated by Horizon’s mission and excited to be part of a public service-oriented, user-focused, low-ego, and collaborative team

Can work in-person in Washington, DC

Salary and benefits

The Senior Program Associate (Talent) will receive a salary of $90,000 - $110,000+ based on experience and seniority. As a small non-profit Horizon has arranged its benefit structure to maximize flexibility for staff. Staff are not required to enroll in a fixed health insurance or retirement plan. Instead, staff have access to a benefits-equivalent cash stipend, which they can use to purchase any of the two dozen health insurance plans on the DC public market (or just keep as an additional salary top-up if they already have health insurance coverage through a parent or spouse) and contribute to a retirement account of their choosing.

Horizon additionally offers:

Unlimited vacation

12 weeks of paid parental leave

Up to $3,000+ per year in professional development funding

Flexible working hours

A productive, collaborative office

We can provide visa sponsorship for qualified candidates.

As an additional benefit in select cases, employees with subject-matter expertise in emerging technology can get the unique opportunity to utilize Horizon’s placement expertise to do a public interest rotation for up to 12 months after working at Horizon for 2 years. At least 6 months notice must be given to redeem this benefit.

Application process

Interested candidates should express initial interest by filling out an application (<15 minutes) by Sunday, February 8, 2026 at 11:59 PM EST. The application process will involve paid work tests, a structured interview, reference checks, and a paid in-person work trial. We will acknowledge receipt of all applications and aim to get back to candidates within 10 business days of the application deadline. Our ideal start date is April 2026, though flexibility is offered for exceptional candidates.

We welcome candidates from diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. Strong candidates may not always fulfill all our required or desired criteria. Studies show that individuals from underrepresented groups may underestimate their qualifications. Therefore, we urge you not to self-disqualify prematurely. If you are excited about this work, we strongly encourage you to apply.