Software Engineer, Cyber Safeguards

Details

About the Team

The Preparedness team addresses frontier risks arising from increasingly capable AI systems. Its work includes measuring and predicting the evolving capabilities of frontier AI systems, mitigating misalignment and other extreme threats through safeguards and alignment tools, and coordinating mitigation targets through OpenAI's preparedness framework.

About the Role

This role leads the technical work behind cyber safeguard infrastructure in Preparedness. The engineer will build production-grade systems supporting cyber evaluations, safeguard research, and the safe deployment of capabilities externally. The role requires close collaboration with researchers and security partners, translating ambiguous research needs into robust and operable systems while driving work across organizational boundaries.

Responsibilities

• Drive the technical direction and hands-on execution for cyber safeguard infrastructure.
• Establish production-quality reliability, observability, on-call, and SLA/SLO practices.
• Partner with security, research, policy, and product teams to translate evolving needs into durable platforms.
• Lead cross-functional technical work, create alignment, and unblock collaborators.
• Build reliable systems supporting cyber evaluations and research workflows.
• Improve the scalability, usability, and operational safety of cyber safeguards.
• Mentor teammates and raise the engineering bar while remaining deeply hands-on.

Requirements

• Extensive experience owning large-scale production systems, including reliability, on-call, incident response, SLAs/SLOs, and operational excellence.
• Senior- or staff-level technical leadership with a track record of driving ambiguous, cross-functional work, particularly in cybersecurity.
• Strong hands-on software engineering and systems-design skills, including the ability to work deeply in code and architecture, quickly understand unfamiliar systems, and make meaningful changes while following existing patterns.
• Ability to collaborate closely with researchers and independently turn evolving research needs into robust infrastructure.
• Experience thinking and communicating about cyber capability, misuse risk, access patterns, safeguards, and deployment tradeoffs in high-stakes environments.
• Experience at a security company, supporting cyber evaluations, or building security and reliability infrastructure is a plus.
• Experience moving from strong engineering into research support is a plus. Former engineering managers are welcome if they remain deeply technical and hands-on.

Benefits

• Equity, in addition to base salary.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and families, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax accounts for health, dependent care, and commuter expenses.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, and caregiver leave.
• Paid time off, paid 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.
• Additional benefits may include charitable donation matching and wellness stipends.