Research Scientist- Safeguards

Role Description

The AI Security 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 Security 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 - non-exhaustively - 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 a Research Scientist, 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 Principle RS positions are available for candidates with the required seniority and experience.

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

• Experience working and publishing 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). This includes 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 within government.
• 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 this research unit, and this advert allows you to apply for any of the roles within this range. Your dedicated talent partner will work with you as you move through our assessment process to explain our internal benchmarking process. The full range of salaries are available below, salaries comprise of a base salary, technical allowance plus additional benefits as detailed on this page.

• Level 3 - Total Package £65,000 - £75,000 inclusive of a base salary £35,720 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £29,280 - £39,280
• Level 4 - Total Package £85,000 - £95,000 inclusive of a base salary £42,495 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £42,505 - £52,505
• Level 5 - Total Package £105,000 - £115,000 inclusive of a base salary £55,805 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £49,195 - £59,195
• Level 6 - Total Package £125,000 - £135,000 inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £56,230 - £66,230
• Level 7 - Total Package £145,000 inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of £76,230

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

This role sits outside of the DDaT pay framework given the scope of this role requires in depth technical expertise in frontier AI safety, robustness and advanced AI architectures.