Frontier AI Research · San Francisco
About the Team
OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We believe that achieving this goal requires effective engagement with public policy stakeholders and the broader community impacted by AI. Accordingly, our Global Affairs team builds authentic, collaborative relationships with public officials, technical experts, civil society, and the broader AI policymaking community. We ensure that insights from policymakers and external stakeholders inform our work and, in collaboration with colleagues across OpenAI, seek to shape policy so that it aligns with and supports our mission.
About the Role
This position reports to OpenAI’s Head of National Security Policy and will serve as a senior individual contributor at the intersection of national security policy, AI safety, and technical AI governance. This person will help OpenAI anticipate and navigate high-stakes policy questions related to increasingly capable AI systems, especially where technical, safety, national security, and societal considerations intersect.
A core requirement for this role is established trust and credibility within the AI safety, research, and governance communities. Technical fluency and national security experience are also a significant plus.
(Washington, DC or San Francisco preferred; other U.S. locations considered)
Key responsibilities include:
Serve as a senior technical-policy advisor to the National Security Policy team on frontier AI safety and governance issues, including CBRN, cyber, autonomous agents, automated AI R&D, evaluations, risk thresholds, and societal resilience.
Act as a cross-functional connector between National Security Policy and internal teams including Safety Systems, Preparedness, Alignment, Research, Security, Legal, and Product Policy.
Drive OpenAI’s engagement with national AI institutes, the Frontier Model Forum, third-party evaluators, research organizations, and other technical governance bodies.
Develop proactive policy strategies that help governments and other institutions prepare for and react to increasingly capable AI systems, including responsible national security adoption, defensive acceleration, democratic oversight, and societal resilience.
Represent OpenAI externally with sound judgment, integrity, and credibility in sensitive engagements with policymakers, technical experts, civil society, and national security stakeholders.
Translate technical realities into clear policy products, including memos, briefs, talking points, government responses, strategy documents, and internal decision materials.
Build and sustain trusted relationships with AI safety researchers, technical policy experts, think tanks, standards bodies, civil society organizations, and current or former government officials.
Help OpenAI identify emerging technical-policy opportunities, pressure-test novel ideas, and determine which initiatives are most important to advance the mission.
You should thrive in this role if you:
Have a strong network in the AI research, safety, and governance communities.
Have solid technical judgment (no need to be a technical researcher) and can reason rigorously about model capabilities, evaluations, threat models, mitigations, and the limits of current evidence.
Are politically astute, with sound judgment about how to navigate sensitive internal and external environments.
Are an excellent writer and communicator who can help senior leaders make decisions under uncertainty.
Are a creative frontier AI policy thinker who can identify, develop, and evaluate new strategic approaches as the policy environment evolves.
Enjoy coordinating complex work across many stakeholders and can operate effectively in fast-moving, ambiguous settings.
Feel the AGI and care deeply about OpenAI’s mission, ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity.
We’re looking for a blend of:
5+ years of experience in frontier AI policy, AI safety, technical AI governance, or a closely related field.
Demonstrated credibility in the AI safety or frontier AI governance fields.
Familiarity with frontier AI risk management issues, including areas such as risk taxonomies, evaluations, model access, CBRN, cyber, recursive self-improvement, and AI safety standards.
Experience working with senior internal or external stakeholders on sensitive policy or technology issues.
Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to convey complex technical and policy concepts to diverse audiences.
Sound judgment, outstanding personal integrity, and the ability to represent OpenAI responsibly in high-trust external settings.
Strong strategic thinking, problem-solving, and project management skills.
Track record of effectively working with cross-functional teams and aligning a diverse range of internal and external partners.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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