Research Program Manager, Safety Systems

Details

About the Team

Safety Systems manages the complete lifecycle of safety efforts for OpenAI’s frontier models. The team works across research, engineering, product, and policy to understand risks, develop and validate safeguards, and support responsible deployment.

Its work spans safeguards research and deployment, safety assessments, launch readiness, and trusted-access programs for advanced capabilities. It addresses risks including biological and cyber misuse and misalignment, with programs that strengthen safety across models and products.

About the Role

OpenAI is hiring Research Program Managers across AI Safeguards and Frontier Risks Safety. The role involves leading programs that develop and improve safeguards used across models and products, or assessing and mitigating risks associated with frontier capabilities, launches, and trusted-access programs.

You will partner with researchers, engineers, and other stakeholders to turn open safety questions into clear programs of work. You will shape technical roadmaps, coordinate execution, and use evidence to guide priorities and inform development and deployment decisions.

Responsibilities

• Shape safety programs and technical roadmaps by defining goals, milestones, dependencies, and success criteria with research and engineering leads.
• Prioritize intake and emerging findings, resolve blockers, and balance immediate safety needs with longer-term research and platform investments.
• Translate safety research into safeguards across models and products, maintaining an end-to-end view of safeguard coverage, effectiveness, and improvement opportunities.
• Coordinate capability evaluations, alignment and control assessments, adversarial testing, and safeguard stress-testing, including risks from autonomous and multi-agent systems.
• Coordinate safety requirements and execution across frontier model launches and deployments.
• Define assessment scope and the evidence needed to inform safety and access decisions.
• Triage safeguard gaps, jailbreaks, and overflagging; establish owners and escalation paths; track remediation and regression testing.
• Turn recurring issues into research and engineering improvements.
• Support safety cases connecting claims to evaluations, safeguards, assumptions, and remaining uncertainty.
• Surface evidence gaps and unresolved risks, and communicate methods, results, limitations, and follow-up actions through assessment reports, system cards, and updates to decision-makers.
• Coordinate shared tooling and feedback workflows, privacy and security requirements, safeguard user experience, and quality assurance across products and launches.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in technical safety work, owning technical programs, or related roles in fast-moving environments.
• Experience leading complex research or technical programs involving researchers and engineers, particularly in AI, cybersecurity, biosafety, or another field where failures can have serious consequences.
• Understanding of frontier AI safety concepts, including capability evaluations, alignment, control, monitoring, and safeguard robustness.
• Ability to assess what evaluation results do and do not establish, including methodological limitations, uncertainty, and the difference between model capability and real-world risk.
• Ability to turn ambiguous questions into clear programs, make practical tradeoffs, and adjust priorities as evidence changes.
• Experience working across research, engineering, and product teams and coordinating with policy and communications partners.
• Sound judgment when findings are concerning or incomplete, with the ability to raise unresolved risks constructively and communicate complex technical work clearly.
• Motivation to help ensure increasingly capable AI systems remain beneficial and under meaningful human control.

Work Arrangement

This role is based in San Francisco, California, and follows a hybrid work model requiring three days in the office per week.

Benefits

• Equity, performance-related bonuses for eligible employees, and comprehensive benefits.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, and caregiver leave.
• Paid time off, company holidays, office closures, and paid sick or safe time as required by law.
• Mental health and wellness support.
• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage.
• Annual learning and development stipend.
• Daily office meals and eligible meal delivery credits.
• Relocation support for eligible employees.