Political Risk Expert - AI Trainer

Obsidian; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Obsidian is building expert-authored forecasting and research data to evaluate AI models on US political and financial analysis. This role covers political report authorship: elections, polling, and political-risk events.

We seek local analysts with hands-on experience on swing-state races, strong polling literacy, and a proven record of live judgments on polling or odds, typically 8+ years in state politics or campaign analytics.

Qualifications

• Strong polling literacy and causal event analysis.
• Proven live judgments about polling or odds in US races.
• On-the-ground knowledge of the electorate and local political environment.

Responsibilities

• Author point-in-time political reports and forecasts from a stated evidence cutoff.
• Make and document directional judgments about polling, win probabilities, and market-implied odds.
• Explain the causal mechanism behind an event's expected political and market impact.
• Review model-generated analyses and grade them against your own standard.

Skills

Polling literacy

Causal analysis

Forecasting skills

Probability judgment

Job description

About the work

We are building expert-authored forecasting and research data used to evaluate and improve AI models on real political and financial analysis. Each task asks a practitioner to reason from a fixed evidence cutoff — no hindsight — and document the judgment a strong analyst would have made at that moment.

This role covers political report authorship: elections, polling, and political-risk events.

What you will do

• Author point-in-time political reports and forecasts from a stated evidence cutoff

• Make and document directional judgments about polling, win probabilities, and market-implied odds

• Explain the causal mechanism behind an event's expected political and market impact

• Review model-generated analyses and grade them against your own standard

Who we are looking for

• Local political analysts with hands‑on experience on specific races in swing states: current or upcoming Senate, governor, or statewide contests, or recent cycles in the same state

• On-the-ground knowledge of the electorate, the candidates, and the local political environment, from roles such as university political scientist, state or regional pollster, state-level campaign or party analytics staff, or state political-risk analyst

• A record of making live judgments about polling, win probabilities, or odds in those races — not retrospective commentary

• Strong polling literacy and causal event analysis

• Typically 8+ years of direct experience, or unusually strong evidence of equivalent performance

Backgrounds we look at first: political science departments and survey research centers at universities in the target states, state and regional pollsters, state-level campaign and party analytics teams, and decision desks or race-ratings outlets with state-specific coverage. National forecasting or political‑risk experience is welcome when paired with deep knowledge of a specific state. Brand‑name experience is a strong first‑pass signal but is not a hard requirement — direct experience and performance on the work sample determine who qualifies.

Not a fit

• Profiles whose experience is mainly international politics, geopolitics, or country risk, with little or no work on US races

• Analysts who have not worked on a current or recent US race in the state they would cover

• Pure communications or journalism profiles without demonstrated forecasting, polling, or probabilistic judgment

• Academic profiles whose work is purely theoretical, with no analysis of live races

Point-in-time discipline

Every task is graded on reasoning from the stated cutoff without hindsight, data leakage, confidential information, or material non-public information.