Research Software Engineer – Safety Evaluations Infrastructure

About the role

As a Research Software Engineer on the Safety team, you will design, build, and own the infrastructure that runs our most sensitive model evaluations, including CBRN, child safety, and other high‑risk domains. The systems you create must be secure, isolated, reproducible, and trustworthy to support release decisions for open models.

Key responsibilities

• Design and build secure, sandboxed infrastructure for running sensitive model evaluations.
• Develop controlled data pipelines and storage with least‑privilege access, RBAC, encryption, audit logging, and data‑minimization safeguards.
• Partner with safety researchers, legal, and domain experts to translate evaluation designs into reliable, scalable systems.
• Build orchestration tooling that enables high‑throughput, isolated evaluations of models and agents.
• Implement guardrails, monitoring, and compartmentalization to keep sensitive work siloed.
• Write production‑quality Python code for data processing and evaluation platforms.
• Continuously improve the reliability, security posture, and developer experience of the evaluation platform.

Required profile

• Strong software engineering background with proven experience building reliable, scalable infrastructure.
• Experience creating sandboxed or security‑sensitive execution environments (e.g., containers, VMs).
• Solid understanding of security engineering fundamentals such as least‑privilege, RBAC, encryption, audit logging, and defense‑in‑depth.
• Ability to own end‑to‑end problems, work discreetly on sensitive projects, and thrive in a fast‑paced startup.

Required skills

• Python
• Containerization / VM isolation
• Security engineering (RBAC, encryption, audit logging)
• Data pipeline development
• Secure compute and sandboxing technologies

What we offer

• Top‑tier compensation: salary and equity.
• Stock options for all contributors.
• Comprehensive health, dental, vision, and life coverage plus wellness allowance.
• Daily lunch and dinner provided on‑site.
• 22 weeks paid parental leave for all new parents.
• Unlimited PTO in the U.S. (30 days in the U.K.).
• Visa sponsorship and immigration support.
• Regular team‑building events, off‑sites, and celebrations.