Researcher, Alignment (Research Engineer / Scientist) at OpenAI (San Francisco or London)

Job Description

OpenAI’s Alignment team is hiring a research engineer or research scientist to make sure its models keep following human intent as they become more capable, including in adversarial or high-stakes situations. The team works on two things: making alignment techniques improve rather than break as capabilities grow, and building ways for people to state their intent and supervise AI systems. The post can be in San Francisco or London.

At a glance

• Team: Alignment
• Location: San Francisco or London
• Pay (US): $295,000 – $500,000 a year plus equity, as listed
• Apply: open until filled (re-checked 14 October 2026)

What you would do

• Turn an open question about model behaviour into a concrete experiment: hypothesis, evaluation or intervention, analysis and conclusion
• Design and build scalable alignment methods that keep working as models become more capable
• Develop ways to bring human oversight into AI decision-making
• Work on risks that can be measured and where the team’s work makes a real difference

Why this role matters

Alignment research decides whether more capable models stay controllable and honest. OpenAI’s approach pairs better techniques with better human oversight, so the work mixes experiments on model behaviour with building interfaces and methods people can use to supervise AI. Few groups work on this at frontier scale, which makes experience here valuable across the whole AI field.

What OpenAI is looking for

• Strong research and engineering skills in machine learning
• The ability to design careful experiments and judge what the evidence supports
• Comfort working with large models and codebases

Nice to have

• Earlier work in alignment, evaluation or AI safety research

Pay and location

OpenAI lists $295,000 to $500,000 a year plus equity for this role in the US; pay in London will differ. OpenAI uses a hybrid model and offers relocation support for many roles.

How to apply

Apply through the official OpenAI job posting. OpenAI’s posting does not give a closing date, so the role is open until filled; ResearchJobs.in will re-check this listing on 14 October 2026. Check the posting for location and work-authorisation details before you apply.

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