Research Scientist/Research Engineer- Safeguards in England

The AI Safety Institute research unit is looking for exceptionally motivated and talented people to join its Safeguard Analysis Team. Interventions that secure a system from abuse by bad actors will grow in importance as AI systems become more advanced and integrated into society. The AI Safety Institute's Safeguard Analysis Team researches such interventions, which it refers to as 'safeguards', evaluating protections used to secure current frontier AI systems and considering what measures could and should be used to secure such systems in the future.

The Safeguard Analysis Team takes a broad view of security threats and interventions. It's keen to hire researchers with expertise developing and analysing attacks and protections for systems based on large language models, but is also keen to hire security researchers who have historically worked outside of AI, such as in computer security, information security, web technology policy, and hardware security. Diverse perspectives and research interests are welcomed.

The Team seeks people with skillsets leaning in the direction of either or both of Research Scientist and Research Engineer, recognising that some technical staff may prefer work that spans or alternates between engineering and research responsibilities. The Team's priorities include research-oriented responsibilities – like assessing the threats to frontier systems and developing novel attacks – and engineering-oriented ones, such as building infrastructure for running evaluations.

In this role, you’ll receive mentorship and coaching from your manager and the technical leads on your team. You’ll also regularly interact with world-famous researchers and other incredible staff, including alumni from Anthropic, DeepMind, OpenAI and ML professors from Oxford and Cambridge. In addition to Junior roles, Senior, Staff and Principal RE positions are available for candidates with the required seniority and experience.

Person Specification

You may be a good fit if you have some of the following skills, experience and attitudes:

• Experience working on machine learning, AI, AI security, computer security, information security, or some other security discipline in industry, in academia, or independently.
• Experience working with a world-class research team comprised of both scientists and engineers (e.g. in a top-3 lab).
• Red-teaming experience against any sort of system.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Comprehensive understanding of large language models (e.g. GPT-4), including both a broad understanding of the literature, as well as hands-on experience with things like pre-training or fine-tuning LLMs.
• Extensive Python experience, including understanding the intricacies of the language, the good vs. bad Pythonic ways of doing things and much of the wider ecosystem/tooling.
• Ability to work in a self-directed way with high agency, thriving in a constantly changing environment and a steadily growing team, while figuring out the best and most efficient ways to solve a particular problem.
• Bring your own voice and experience but also an eagerness to support your colleagues together with a willingness to do whatever is necessary for the team's success and find new ways of getting things done.
• Have a sense of mission, urgency, and responsibility for success, demonstrating problem-solving abilities and preparedness to acquire any missing knowledge necessary to get the job done.
• Writing production quality code.
• Improving technical standards across a team through mentoring and feedback.
• Designing, shipping, and maintaining complex tech products.

Salary & Benefits

We are hiring individuals at all ranges of seniority and experience within the research unit, and this advert allows you to apply for any of the roles within this range. We will discuss and calibrate with you as part of the process. The full range of salaries available is as follows:

• L3: £65,000 - £75,000
• L4: £85,000 - £95,000
• L5: £105,000 - £115,000
• L6: £125,000 - £135,000
• L7: £145,000

There are a range of pension options available which can be found through the Civil Service website.

Selection Process

In accordance with the Civil Service Commission rules, the following list contains all selection criteria for the interview process.

Required Experience

This job advert encompasses a range of possible research and engineering roles within the Safeguard Analysis Team. The 'required' experiences listed below should be interpreted as examples of the expertise we’re looking for, as opposed to a list of everything we expect to find in one applicant:

• Writing production quality code
• Writing code efficiently
• Python
• Frontier model architecture knowledge
• Frontier model training knowledge
• Model evaluations knowledge
• AI safety research knowledge
• Security research knowledge
• Research problem selection
• Research science
• Written communication
• Verbal communication
• Teamwork
• Interpersonal skills
• Tackle challenging problems
• Learn through coaching