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AI Engineer & Researcher - Safety & Societal Impact

San Francisco & Palo Alto, CA

About xAI

xAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge.

Our team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering excellence. This organization is for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity.

We operate with a flat organizational structure. All employees are expected to be hands-on and to contribute directly to the company’s mission. Leadership is given to those who show initiative and consistently deliver excellence. Work ethic and strong prioritization skills are important.

All engineers and researchers are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.

About the Role

xAI is seeking talented researchers and engineers to improve the safety of our AI systems and ensure that they are maximally beneficial for society.

In this role, you will develop novel evaluations and red teaming mechanisms to understand any safety limitations of our frontier AI systems. You will improve our risk management framework and our AI systems based on new evaluation results. You will develop data collection and model improvement strategies to mitigate foreseeable societal or safety risks from increasingly intelligent systems. Depending on your focus, you may work with policy or legal teams to translate non-technical guidelines into technical problems.

Focus

Candidates for this role may focus on one or more of the following:

  • Evaluating and improving AI systems’ truthfulness to counter AI misinformation.
  • Evaluating and mitigating AI systems’ political and social biases.
  • Evaluating and mitigating AI systems’ safety risks along the axes of chemical security, biosecurity, cybersecurity, and nuclear safety.
  • Evaluating and improving the safety profile of agentic and autonomous systems.

Ideal experience

The ideal candidate:

  • has experience studying the societal impact, safety risks, or security risks of frontier AI systems,
  • has background and experience leading empirical research on frontier AI systems,
  • has good engineering skills and are data- and evidence-driven,
  • is a team player, and
  • is willing to pick up new skills to get the job done.

Tech Stack

  • Python
  • JAX

Interview Process

After submitting your application, the team reviews your CV and statement of exceptional work. If your application passes this stage, you will be invited to a 15 minute interview (“phone interview”) during which a member of our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the initial phone interview, you will enter the main process, which consists of four technical interviews:

  • Coding assessment in a language of your choice.
  • Safety & Societal Impact Session: This session will be testing your ability to formulate, design and solve concrete problems in safety and societal impact.
  • Post-training Technical Session: This session will be assessing your engineering skills to design and implement solutions to solve problems in post-training.
  • Meet the Team: Present your past exceptional work and your vision with xAI to a small audience.

Every application is reviewed by a member of our technical team. All interviews will be conducted via Google Meet.

Location

The role is based in the Bay Area [San Francisco and Palo Alto]. Candidates are expected to be located near the Bay Area or open to relocation.

Annual Salary Range

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

xAI is an equal opportunity employer and does not unlawfully discriminate based on race, color, religion, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, disability, medical conditions, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics. 

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:

xAI reasonably believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: 

  • Access to information technology systems and confidential information, including proprietary and trade secret information, and/or user data;
  • Interacting with internal and/or external clients and colleagues; and
  • Exercising sound judgment.

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