At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and build innovative safety systems for AI agents, ensuring user intent is respected.
- Company: Join OpenAI, a leader in AI research and deployment with a mission to benefit humanity.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible work environment, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Collaborative team culture in London with excellent career advancement opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on AI safety while working with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: Experience in software development and a passion for building trustworthy AI systems.
The predicted salary is between 80100 - 97900 £ per year.
About the Team
The Guardian team builds practical safety and oversight systems for increasingly capable AI agents. Our goal is to make it possible for agents to take on longer-running, higher-autonomy work while preserving meaningful safeguards, respecting user intent, and intervening when actions could cause serious or difficult-to-reverse harm. Auto-review is an early example of this work. When an agent reaches a permission boundary, a separate model evaluates the proposed action in context and determines whether it should proceed. The team is now extending this foundation into more capable oversight systems that account for richer user context, support a broader range of agent experiences, and integrate across OpenAI products. Guardian sits at the intersection of engineering, alignment research, product, infrastructure, and security. The team already has a strong engineering foundation in London and will continue to grow there as a concentrated, highly collaborative group.
About the Role
We are looking for a Software Engineer to join the Guardian team in London. You will design and build production systems that evaluate agent behavior, identify risk, and take appropriate action without creating unnecessary friction for users. This is a hands‑on engineering role with substantial technical depth and ownership. You will work across architecture, implementation, evaluation, and operations, taking projects from early exploration through production deployment. The work requires strong engineering fundamentals, sound product judgment, and comfort solving problems where both the requirements and the underlying technology are evolving. You will work closely with alignment researchers to translate emerging research into dependable systems, and with product and engineering teams to make agent safety a foundational capability across OpenAI.
In this role, you will:
- Design, build, and operate core components of Auto-review and the broader Guardian platform, balancing safety, product utility, latency, and operational reliability.
- Build production systems that evaluate agent actions in real time, detect potentially harmful behavior, and support safe recovery or escalation paths.
- Improve how oversight systems understand user intent, environmental context, permissions, and relevant personalization signals while protecting privacy and avoiding unnecessary friction.
- Partner closely with alignment researchers to turn prototypes, evaluations, and new monitoring techniques into scalable product capabilities.
- Work across Product, Security, Infrastructure, and other engineering teams to integrate Guardian capabilities into agent experiences throughout OpenAI.
- Develop evaluations, adversarial tests, and monitoring to understand safety performance, false positives, latency, and user impact.
- Own projects end to end, contribute to technical direction and design reviews, and investigate failures to improve system behavior and reliability.
You might thrive in this role if you:
- Have experience building and shipping complex production software, with ownership across design, implementation, deployment, and operation.
- Have built with AI agents or large language models in a core product, startup, or technically serious independent project, and understand the unique challenges of agentic systems.
- Bring strong software engineering fundamentals and can design reliable backend services, APIs, and infrastructure.
- Exercise sound product-engineering judgment and can navigate tradeoffs across safety, usability, speed, and reliability.
- Enjoy working closely with researchers, translating open-ended ideas into practical systems, and using experiments and evaluations to guide decisions.
- Are comfortable with ambiguity, take initiative, and communicate clearly across technical disciplines.
- Care deeply about building AI systems that are useful, trustworthy, and safe.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general‑purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
Software Engineer, Guardian employer: OpenAI
OpenAI is an exceptional employer, offering a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of AI technology while collaborating with leading organizations to create impactful solutions. With a hybrid work model and a strong commitment to employee growth, OpenAI fosters a culture of innovation and inclusivity, ensuring that every team member can contribute to meaningful projects that benefit humanity. The company's focus on safety, diverse perspectives, and professional development makes it an attractive place for those seeking a rewarding career in applied AI engineering.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Software Engineer, Guardian
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at OpenAI or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to OpenAI.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like OpenAI.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like OpenAI that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Software Engineer, Guardian
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at OpenAI.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at OpenAI and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at OpenAI
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If OpenAI uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
