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Editorial Director

Location: Washington, D.C. (full-time, in-person)

Deadline: Apply here by April 12, 2026

Reward: $3,000 for any referral that results in a hire 

About IFP 

The Institute for Progress (IFP) is a non-partisan think tank focused on innovation policy. Our organization works to accelerate and shape the direction of scientific, technological, and industrial progress. IFP works with policymakers across the political spectrum in Washington, D.C. to make it easier to build the future in the United States. You can read more about our vision and mission in our founding essay written by co-founders Alec Stapp and Caleb Watney.

The role

The Editorial Director is a cornerstone of IFP, helping translate our policy ambitions into proposals that are easy for our audiences to champion. IFP is a fast-growing organization, and we aim to be the most effective think tank in D.C. We measure our efficacy by our counterfactual policy impact: whether we drive policy outcomes that would not have otherwise happened. 

The Editorial team steers IFP’s persuasive craft through brand, voice, and argumentation. As Editorial Director, your job will be to marshal our editorial resources to help our team maximize that impact. You’ll partner with organization leadership and our five policy teams to guide how IFP communicates. Unlike in some traditional editorial roles, your north star won’t be page views, impressions, or brand recognition. Instead, you’ll be optimizing for persuading the right stakeholders, at the right time, to deliver big changes in American policy.

This role comes with latitude. You’ll manage a team that currently consists of two Editors and a Creative Strategist. Together, you’ll help develop our product and community strategy, create IFP’s print and digital surfaces, and strengthen how IFP communicates its policy portfolio. Editorial owns how our audiences experience IFP, so we’re looking for someone who is eager to experiment with different form factors. 

This is a unique and critical role for our team, and we’re open-minded about the backgrounds and skills that could be a fit. Above all else, we’re looking for a sharp editor who cares about the craft of persuasion, whether that be a former speechwriter, someone with a newsroom background, or a fellow think tanker looking for a new challenge.

This role reports to the Co-CEOs.

Qualifications

You’ll be a great fit if you are: 

  • Opinionated. You enjoy the nuts and bolts of editing and love language. You can edit experts with a steady hand. 
  • Creative. You have ideas about how to do things differently and know how to be bold without undermining trust. 
  • Persuasive. You have high tonal sensitivity and good instincts about what will actually land. You don’t need to be an issue-area expert, but you do need to understand the network of people, publications, and ideas in IFP’s orbit, and have the literacy to engage substantively with our work. 
  • A coach who builds capacity. You can develop both editors and writers, and you derive joy from that interpersonal work. You can build workflows (including with AI) to help our policy teams operate more independently without compromising quality or rigor.
  • Discerning. You understand Goodhart’s Law and optimize for what matters.
  • Strategic. You are intentional about how you set goals and can manage a team toward them. 
  • Proactive. You work across organizational boundaries, even when it’s not formally your remit.
  • Curious. You’re a high decoupler, ask good questions, and have a sense of humor.

This is not a role for:

  • Someone whose first instinct is adversarial or partisan. We’re a non-partisan organization, and we’re committed to our policy objectives first and foremost. We’re happy to work with whoever can help advance our policy priorities, and we need the Editorial Director to share that disposition.
  • A media professional whose focus is distribution, digital strategy, or partnerships. Because we’re optimizing for counterfactual policy impact, some of our most important work will target a narrow audience. You’ll need to be able to calibrate for impact.
  • Someone who has not previously worked in policy. While we welcome applications from candidates with unorthodox backgrounds, we need someone with a high level of context on how policymaking works.
  • Someone without prior management experience.
  • Someone looking for a slower pace.

Responsibilities

  1. Team management and development (~35%). Manage our editorial team to help them be the best thought partners possible to writers, and coach our policy teams to develop their own voices and improve their craft. Build a team culture that values rigor, creativity, and speed. Help policy teams across IFP become more self-sufficient communicators.
  2. Editorial leadership and strategy (~25%). Set the editorial direction for IFP. Ensure coherence and quality across all five policy verticals. Define what excellent output looks like and hold the team to that standard. Work with organizational leadership to align editorial strategy with IFP’s policy and institutional goals. Actively shape what IFP publishes, in what formats, and through what channels.
  3. Editing and production (~25%). Edit a wide range of work: op-eds, policy memos, reports, Substacks, slide decks, and more. Provide opinionated, high-quality edits on tight deadlines. Maintain IFP’s voice and tone across all written materials.
  4. Process, systems, and experimentation (~15%). Build and iterate on editorial processes that help IFP ship great work consistently as we grow. Identify opportunities to improve efficiency and quality — including through AI tools and new workflows. 

Salary and benefits

IFP offers a competitive compensation package. The minimum salary for this role is $175,000 with the potential for more based on experience. 

Our benefits package for full-time employees includes:

  • Unlimited PTO + paid holidays
  • Generous health, dental, and vision coverage for you and dependents
  • Three months of fully paid parental leave
  • A 5% annual employer retirement contribution

IFP will pay a $3,000 reward for any referral that results in a hire. This application will close on April 12th, 2026.

Click here to apply.