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Researcher, Safety - Frontier Assurance

OpenAI· Safety Systems
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San Francisco$380k - $500kFull-timePosted 1w ago

About the role

Researcher role focused on building technical foundations for rigorous frontier AI risk assessments, designing and executing assessments with external evaluators and internal teams, and developing reusable tooling to support independent scrutiny of OpenAI’s frontier models and safeguards.

Responsibilities

  • Help design assessments with external evaluators and internal teams: identify consequential safety claims to test, define the evidence and methods needed to assess them, and address gaps in coverage.
  • Support the technical execution of third-party assessments and embedded audits focused on frontier risks, working with evaluators to translate research questions into experiments, analyses, and evidence requirements.
  • Pair closely with external researchers to provide the data, technical documentation, and context needed to assess models and safeguards. Help them understand relevant system behavior, configurations, and limitations.
  • Design and implement secure access to assessment environments, working with research, engineering, and security teams to make relevant models, tools, and information available.
  • Conduct experiments and run analyses on evaluators’ behalf when direct access is constrained. Develop methods collaboratively, document implementation choices, and make results reproducible and open to challenge.
  • Build tooling that automates auditing, assessment workflows, and internal assurance work, including evidence collection, evaluation execution, and tracking changes across model or safeguard versions.
  • Reproduce external findings, investigate discrepancies with internal results, and work with relevant teams to test proposed mitigations and identify unresolved questions.
  • Document methods, findings, and limitations clearly so that evaluators and internal decision-makers can understand what the evidence establishes and where uncertainty remains.

Qualifications

  • Strong software engineering skills and experience building research tools, evaluation infrastructure, or systems for analyzing complex data.
  • Practical experience working with modern machine learning systems, including designing experiments, running evaluations, and interpreting results.
  • Ability to navigate unfamiliar codebases and infrastructure, debug across system boundaries, and turn ambiguous research requests into reliable technical implementations.
  • Sound judgment to experimental design, identifying confounders, limitations, and gaps in evidence.
  • Enjoy working closely with researchers, explaining technical systems, and helping others investigate difficult questions.
  • Value independent scrutiny and can support rigorous assessments that challenge internal assumptions.
  • Understanding of, or strong interest in, frontier AI risks, alignment, and evaluation of safeguards.
  • Experience with AI safety evaluations, adversarial testing, security research, or technical auditing would be especially relevant.

Skills

Required:Software engineeringExperiment design and evaluationCollaboration with external researchers

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
  • Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
  • 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
  • Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
  • Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
  • 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time
  • Mental health and wellness support
  • Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
  • Annual learning and development stipend
  • Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
  • Relocation support for eligible employees
  • Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends
Last updated Oct 15, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About OpenAI

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