Lead Research Engineer / Scientist, Chemical & Biological Risk

Details

The Safety Systems team ensures OpenAI's models can be safely deployed to the real world. As the lead researcher for chemical & biological risks, you will design, implement, and oversee an end-to-end mitigation stack to prevent severe chemical and biological misuse across OpenAI’s products. This role requires technical depth, decisive leadership, and cross-company influence to ensure safeguards are enforceable, scalable, and effective.

Responsibilities

• Lead the full-stack mitigation strategy and implement solutions for biological and chemical misuse — from prevention to enforcement.
• Ensure safeguards integrate seamlessly across OpenAI products and scale with usage.
• Make decisive calls on technical trade-offs within the bio risk domain.
• Partner with risk modeling leadership to align mitigation design with anticipated risks and coverage.
• Drive rigorous safeguard testing by stress-testing the mitigation stack against evolving threats and product surfaces.
• Provide cross-functional leadership and influence across research, policy, product, and engineering teams.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience in deep learning and transformer models.
• Proficiency with frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Strong foundation in data structures, algorithms, and software engineering principles.
• Familiarity with methods for training and fine-tuning large language models, including distillation, supervised fine-tuning, and policy optimization.
• Significant experience designing and deploying technical safeguards at scale.
• Ability to lead in high-stakes, ambiguous environments and make decisive technical trade-offs.
• Excellent collaboration skills across research, policy, product, and engineering teams.

Nice to have:

• Background knowledge in biosecurity, computational biology, or adjacent technical fields.

Benefits

• Estimated base salary listed as $460K (role-specific total compensation also includes equity and may include performance-related bonuses).
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax accounts (Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, commuter benefits).
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, and caregiver leave.
• Flexible PTO for exempt employees; paid time off details vary by employment type.
• 13+ paid company holidays and coordinated office closures.
• Mental health and wellness support; employer-paid basic life and disability coverage.
• Annual learning and development stipend.
• Daily meals in offices and meal delivery credits as eligible.
• Relocation support for eligible employees.
• Additional taxable fringe benefits (charitable donation matching, wellness stipends).

About OpenAI / Team

The Safety Systems team is responsible for safety work that enables safe deployment of models and supports OpenAI's mission to build and deploy safe AGI. OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. Background checks will be administered in accordance with applicable law.