Brian Tan
About
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Headhunting Product Specialist at 80,000 Hours | I help impactful orgs find good candidates to help make AI go well
London, England, United Kingdom
Résumé
Jobs
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Headhunting Product SpecialistHoursMar 2026 - Current (8 months)I use and improve 80,000 Hours' AI-powered product that helps other organisations (primarily in AI safety) find good candidates to hire.
80,000 Hours provides research and support to help talented people move into careers that tackle the world’s most pressing problems, with a focus on ensuring advanced AI is safe and beneficial.- Operations AssociateArcadia ImpactJul 2025 - Feb 2026 (8 months)Arcadia Impact is a UK nonprofit that empowers people and organisations to tackle the most pressing global issues, with a focus on AI safety.
- Co-Founder and Operations DirectorWhiteBox ResearchSep 2023 - Jul 2025 (1 year 11 months)WhiteBox Research (whiteboxresearch.org) is a nonprofit aiming to develop more AI interpretability and safety researchers in Southeast Asia. I led the operations and marketing of WhiteBox.
- Board MemberAnimal Empathy PhilippinesMar 2023 - Jul 2025 (2 years 5 months)
- Advisor / Board MemberEffective Altruism PhilippinesMay 2022 - Sep 2024 (2 years 5 months)
- Group Support ContractorThe Centre for Effective AltruismDec 2021 - Jan 2024 (2 years 2 months)I worked as a Group Support Contractor for the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). CEA is an international non-profit that supports the growth of the global effective altruism movement. Effective altruism is the philosophy of using evidence and reason to do the most good with one's careers and resources.
I worked to give basic support to EA groups around the world by responding to questions from group organizers, processing funding requests and tech requests, compiling the EA Groups newsletter, and maintaining the EA Groups Resource Centre. - Community BuilderEffective Altruism PhilippinesDec 2021 - May 2022 (6 months)
- Participant, Region-Specific Research ProgramCharity EntrepreneurshipJun 2021 - Aug 2021 (3 months)I was one of 30 participants in Charity Entrepreneurship's 2021 Incubation Program, and I was in their region-specific research program. Charity Entrepreneurship incubates multiple high-impact charities each year through a 2-month training program. The program helps make participants fully prepared to create and operate an effective non-profit. In the region-specific research track though, instead of just focusing on learning how to start a charity, we learn how to research effective charity ideas within a region. Now that the 2-month program has ended, Shen Javier (my project partner) and I from EA Philippines are now leading research on the top mental health charity ideas in the Philippines for 6 months, with the help of 3 part-time resea
- UI/UX Designer, EA FundsThe Centre for Effective AltruismApr 2021 - Jun 2021 (3 months)I spent 6 hrs per week redesigning the EA Funds website (https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/) over 2 months as a contractor for them. EA Funds is a project of the Centre for EA. They help donors easily make impactful donations, either by helping them donate to various recommended charities, or donating to funds managed by philanthropic experts.
- Community BuilderEffective Altruism PhilippinesOct 2020 - Dec 2021 (1 year 3 months)I received a grant from the Centre for Effective Altruism to work on EA Philippines from Oct. 2020 to Dec. 2021. Our mission is to provide high-quality resources and discussion spaces for students and professionals to learn about and practice the principles of effective altruism. Learn more about our work at effectivealtruism.ph!
- Senior Product DesignerFirst CircleJul 2020 - Dec 2020 (6 months)
- Product DesignerFirst CircleJul 2019 - Jun 2020 (1 year)First Circle is a fintech startup providing financial services to SMEs. They provide short-term loans, such as purchase order and invoice financing, to businesses in the Philippines.
- UI/UX Design ApprenticeStampedeJan 2019 - Apr 2019 (4 months)• Interned for Stampede Design, a Malaysian UX and Software Dev't Agency, as the first remote intern they’ve ever hired
• Designed hi-fi mockups and created a styleguide for a website that will showcase user research reports
• Created multiple UX deliverables (competitive analysis, user interview questions, user personas, and journey maps) for a client - Co-Founder and Volunteer Co-OrganizerEffective Altruism PhilippinesNov 2018 - Oct 2020 (2 years)I co-founded Effective Altruism Philippines in 2018 as the Philippine chapter of the effective altruism (EA) movement. Effective altruism is a global philosophy and movement of people using evidence and reason to figure out how to help others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis.
- UI/UX DesignerHeronChat TechnologyAug 2018 - Nov 2018 (4 months)Was the lead UI/UX Designer for HeronChat, a platform to helps jobseekers find jobs abroad as overseas workers and help them connect with other overseas workers through a forum.
• Designed our landing page (heronchat.com) and our app’s navigation
• Mentored and trained a UI/UX Designer to help design & prototype our app - VP for Human ResoucesUser Experience SocietyJun 2018 - May 2019 (1 year)• Spearheaded UX Society's Recruitment Week promotions and operations which allowed us to recruit a record of 290+ org members
• Created a retention system for the first-time for UXSoc, designed to boost engagement of members to our events and projects - UX Research InternShopeeJun 2018 - Aug 2018 (3 months)Interned in the UX Research team of Shopee, the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
• Planned and created surveys to identify specific pain points of users and did call-outs
• Organized a workshop & co-design session with 30+ employees to brainstorm
solutions to Shopee users’ problems, which led to creation of new committees
• Created a tracker for the CX team to view & store all NPS-related and CX-related
data week-on-week, which led to faster & clearer weekly data reporting
• Created manuals to document how to do various UX Research tasks at Shopee - Senior Product DesignerUser Experience SocietyAug 2017 - May 2018 (10 months)• Led a team of 6 in creating content and designing & coding the website for Tugon Ateneo at tugonateneo.org.
• Conceptualized and spearheaded the organizing of UX University 2018, an 8-week crash course on UI/UX Design with 40+ student participants.
• Gave a workshop on Information Architecture to the UX University participants - Product Design InternKalibrrJun 2017 - Aug 2017 (3 months)Was a product design intern at Kalibrr, Southeast Asia's fastest growing job recruitment platform. I did a variety of product design tasks, such as user research, usability testing, visual/interaction design and product prototyping, to improve various aspects of Kalibrr's website and mobile app.
• Proposed and designed a new log in and sign up flow for Kalibrr
• Prototyped CSS animations & “lazy loading” design to solve the problem of users
complaining about slow page loads, which are now used in Kalibrr’s website
• Re-designed the flow of taking job assessments on the Kalibrr mobile app so that users would only take tests that were answerable on a phone.
• Conducted usability tests with 3 users for Kalibrr’s Androi - UX Consultancy Officer (SY '16-'17)User Experience SocietyNov 2016 - May 2017 (7 months)• Was accepted last November 2016 as a Consultancy Officer into User Experience Society, a student organization focused on human-centered design.
• Designed and helped code 3 new sections for the website of our client, TEDxADMU. - Community Director & Startup School DirectorASES ManilaSep 2016 - May 2017 (9 months)ASES Manila is the Manila chapter of the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society - a student organization founded in Stanford University.
• Led the conceptualization and execution of ASES Manila's Startup School - an 8-week program wherein ASES members form teams and learn about startup concepts every week.
• Created modules for the topics of Lo-Fi Prototyping, Hi-Fi Prototyping, and Building an MVP for Startup School.
• Conceptualized the ASES Bootcamp for Career Design, a 3-day career planning
conference for students in Manila, which became ASES’s annual flagship event, and supervised the team in organizing it - Co-CreatorHangTimeAug 2016 - Jun 2019 (2 years 11 months)HangTime was a web app that had 9,000+ users and helped students compare schedules with friends and schedule meetings easily.
• Managed a team of 6 to create & launch HangTime
• Ideated HangTime’s features, designed mockups, did user research & testing, set
up customer service channels, & coded parts of the website (hangtimeapp.com)
• Acquired 2,000+ users and reached 35,000+ people in 3 days from HangTime’s
first version’s launch, all organically through social media - Front-End Web Development InternZap Group IncMay 2016Went back to ZAP to work as a website development intern this time around.
• Coded the front-end of a simple admin platform of ZAP for a partner merchant. Developed using HTML, CSS, React, and React Bootstrap. - Co-Creator & Web DeveloperBusiness Made EasyOct 2015 - Dec 2020 (5 years 3 months)Business Made Easy is an online portal of notes for IB Business students around the world. Our website is at www.businessmadeeasy.xyz.
• Created website using Wordpress
• Set up Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Email Subscription Popups
• Website now generates ad revenue and averages 100-300 page views a day from users around the world - Externals Director & Website DeveloperHealthHacks PHSep 2015 - Feb 2017 (1 year 6 months)HealthHacks PH is a non-profit organization that promotes healthcare innovation and technology to the youth.
• Sketched, designed, and coded the official website for HealthHacks 2017; developed using HTML and CSS; designed using Photoshop CC. Check it out at healthhacks.ph.
• Helped organize HealthHacks 2016 and 2017 - the first-ever Philippine healthcare hackathon for students.
• Successfully invited 24 various experts in Healthcare, Business, Design, and Software Dev to be speakers, mentors, and/or judges for HealthHacks 2016 and 2017 (9 for HealthHacks 2016, 15 for HealthHacks 2017).
• Wrote a post-event article that got fea - PresidentASES ManilaAug 2015 - Aug 2016 (1 year 1 month)• Appointed as President of ASES Manila in freshman year
• Spearheaded a 24-person team in organizing the ASES Summit Manila 2016, a 7-
day entrepreneurship conference with 23 int’l delegates from 7 countries.
• Created a program flow of talks from inspiring speakers, workshops by industry leaders, and a pitching competition to a panel of esteemed judges from the local tech industry.
• Invited 12 industry leaders in entrepreneurship and UX to give talks during the conference.
Education
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- Bachelor’s Degree, Information Technology EntrepreneurshipAteneo de Manila UniversityAug 2015 - May 2019 (3 years 10 months)• Received Merit Scholarship, a full scholarship awarded only to the Top 40 Freshman Applicants of that year
• Graduated as Cum Laude with a Cumulative QPI of 3.66/4.00 - High School, International Baccalaureate Diploma ProgramXavier School• Graduated as Co-Valedictorian (Tied for 1st in rank out of 300+ students in the batch)
• Graduated from the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, with these as my subjects:
Higher Level Subjects: Business and Management, Mathematics, and Physics
Standard Level Subjects: English Language and Literature, Chinese B, and Chemistry - Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society Summit (ASES SummitStanford UniversitySelected as one of 35 delegates from all over the world for a week-long entrepreneurship conference held in Stanford. Learned from various speakers from different Silicon Valley companies, such as Facebook, Github, Palantir, Disney, IDEO, KPCB, and SAP.
I wrote about my lessons and insights from the conference here: https://medium.com/@btantheman/highlights-and-learnings-from-the-ases-stanford-summit-2016-fefc611df3cb
Awards
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- C2nd Place at Ateneo BlueHacks Hackathon 2016Computer Society of the AteneoOur team, "The Growth Hackers", won 2nd Place at the Ateneo "BlueHacks" Hackathon held last February 26-27, 2016. We created HangTime - a social scheduling app for students.
- Finalist at Unionbank's U:Hac HackathonUnionBankOur team was part of the Top 12 Finalists out of 50+ teams in Unionbank's U:Hac Hackathon back in August 27-28, 2016. We created PrepBot, an interview-rehearsal web app.