At a Glance
- Tasks: Build and test autonomous environments for AI agents, studying their failures and behaviours.
- Company: Join White Circle, an innovative AI Safety company focused on reliability and optimisation.
- Benefits: Enjoy competitive pay, paid time off, and comprehensive medical insurance for our France-based team.
- Other info: Work hybrid from Paris or London, with exciting team off-sites and growth opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in AI safety while working with cutting-edge technology and a passionate team.
- Qualifications: Experience in building agent environments and strong software engineering skills required.
The predicted salary is between 70000 - 90000 £ per year.
TLDR
We're looking for a research scientist to build autonomous, large-scale environments that push LLM agents (single and multi-agent) to failure, and study how they actually break.
About Us
White Circle is an AI Safety company building the safety, reliability, and optimization layer for AI systems.
At the core of our platform are policies – simple natural-language rules that define what an AI model should and shouldn’t do.
We automatically test, enforce, and continuously improve these policies at scale.
- We’ve raised $11M from top funds, founders, and senior leaders at Open AI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, Mistral, Deep Mind, Datadog, Sentry, and others
- We process over 100M+ API calls every month
- We fine-tune and train our own LLMs so they run faster and cheaper than any open or proprietary model
We’re a small, highly focused team.
If you want to work deeply on hard problems, see your work ship to production quickly, and influence how AI safety is actually built – you’re the one we need.
About The Team
White Circle's fundamental research team works on the science of how AI systems fail: where agents break, why misalignment and unsafe behaviours emerge, and how to catch them before they reach the real world.
We build the evals, benchmarks, environments, and tooling that empirically study the most pressing AI safety concerns — some of which become the guardrails shipped in our products, and some of which become public writeups.
- You will
- Build adversarial environments for agents: complex, uncertain settings that sit on the boundary of agent capability and alignment, where failure is informative rather than trivial.
- Build realistic multi-agent environments and instrument them so emergent breakdowns are observable — failures that arise from the agents themselves, not ones scripted from the outside.
- Run experiments end to end, against external APIs and our own models, orchestrating many agents in parallel.
- Catalogue concrete agent failure modes and build the tooling to surface them at scale.
- Turn findings into internal models of agent behaviour and into public writeups.
- You’ll fit right in if you
- Have built at least one non-trivial agent environment or automated research pipeline that ran end to end (single- or multi-agent), and can talk through what broke and why.
- Strong software and AI engineering. Can independently orchestrate many agents and containers in parallel without that orchestration being the bottleneck.
- A track record of empirical research in agents, red‑teaming, or post‑training where you defined the question, ran it, and drew a defensible conclusion.
- A fast empirical iterator who is comfortable defining the question when there's no playbook: can take a fuzzy concern (“do these agents collude under pressure?”) and turn it into a concrete, falsifiable experiment.
- An AI power‑user — fluent with frontier models and coding agents in your daily work.
- A big plus
- Published research at A* venues on automated red‑teaming, agentic environments, or post‑training.
- Experience building monitoring for model failures and anomalous behaviour.
- Experience reproducing public benchmark results and finding where the original methodology is fragile or misleading.
- An MSc or Ph D in machine learning, computer science, cognitive science, computational neuroscience, physics, or a related quantitative field.
- AI safety fellowship (MATS, ASTRA, Anthropic Fellows, etc.), or a comparable self‑directed research record.
- Why White Circle
- Paid time off in line with your local regulations, no matter where you work from
- Work from Paris (hybrid) with a relocation package available, or work from London (note: we are unable to provide relocation support or medical insurance for London‑based roles)
- Comprehensive medical insurance for our France‑based team
- All the hardware, tools, and services you need
- Covered subscriptions for AI agents and IDEs
- Team off‑sites twice a year: we’ve recently been to the Alps and to Saint‑Tropez
- How We Hire
- Introductory call with HR (25 min)
- Take‑home test task
- Technical interview with Head of Fundamental Research (60 min)
- Final conversation with our CEO (45 min)
Please submit your application in English.
Compensation Range: $150K - $250K
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StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Research Scientist/Engineer (Agentic Systems) in London
✨Get Involved in Research Communities
Dive headfirst into the scientific research world by joining relevant communities and forums. Engage in discussions, share your insights, and even attend conferences or seminars in your field. This not only boosts your visibility but can also lead to potential job opportunities—don't forget to connect with like-minded folks!
✨Show Off Your Research Projects
Have you worked on any cool research projects? Make it easy for potential employers to see your work by creating a portfolio or a personal website. This way, when you apply for roles like the one at White Circle, you can point them to your projects and publications, showcasing your expertise directly.
✨Utilise Professional Networks
Networking is key in scientific research. Join professional bodies or organisations related to your field. They often have job boards and resources tailored for job seekers. Make connections with professionals who may know about openings or can give you tips on landing a full-time position.
✨Keep Your Eyes on Openings & Apply Directly
Don’t just rely on job boards! Keep an eye on the careers section of the websites of companies like White Circle. Apply directly through their website because sometimes they post jobs there before anywhere else. Plus, it shows your proactive approach!
We think you need these skills to ace Research Scientist/Engineer (Agentic Systems) in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Highlight Your Research Experience:When applying for a full-time role in scientific research, make sure to emphasise your research experience prominently in your CV. Share specific projects you’ve worked on, the methodologies you used, and any significant findings. If you’ve published papers or presented at conferences, definitely include that too – it shows you’re on it in the academic world!
Tailor Your Cover Letter to the Research Area:Your cover letter should reflect your passion for the specific area of research at White Circle. Mention relevant experiences that align with the organisation’s goals or projects. This shows that you’ve done your homework and are genuinely interested in the position – plus, it helps us see how you’d fit into the team dynamics.
Showcase Your Data Analysis Skills:In scientific research, data analysis skills are a big deal! Make sure to detail any relevant analytical tools or software you’re familiar with, like R, Python, or statistical packages. Employers are keen to know you can handle the data-heavy elements of the role, so add specific examples where you’ve used these skills effectively.
Discuss Your Future Research Goals:In your motivation section, it’s a great idea to talk about your future research goals and how they align with the work being done at White Circle. This shows that you’re not just looking for any job, but rather a chance to contribute meaningfully to the field. We love to see applicants who are forward-thinking and enthusiastic about their research journey!
How to prepare for a job interview at White Circle
✨Showcase Your Research Skills
In scientific research, it’s crucial to demonstrate your ability to design and conduct experiments. Come armed with examples of past projects where you've developed hypotheses, collected data, and analysed results. Be ready to discuss any specific methodologies or tools you’ve used, like PCR techniques or statistical software.
✨Prepare for Technical Questions
Expect some technical questions specific to your field. Make sure you're up to speed with recent advancements in scientific research related to the role at White Circle. Brush up on concepts relevant to their projects and be prepared to discuss how you would approach a specific research problem or challenge they might face.
✨Know Your Publications
If you've authored or co-authored any papers, be prepared to discuss them! Highlighting your contributions to published research can really set you apart. It shows not only your expertise but also your ability to communicate complex ideas clearly, which is key in scientific research roles.
✨Exhibit Your Team Spirit
In full-time roles, collaboration is often at the heart of scientific research. Prepare examples that show how you've successfully worked in teams, dealt with conflicts, or contributed to group projects. We want to know how you can work effectively with the team at White Circle to drive research projects forward.
