Head of Engineering – Frontier Safety

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Act as the senior technical leader for engineering within FAR.AI’s Frontier Safety division.

• Report directly to Kellin Pelrine while having a dotted line to Edward Yee.

• Convert technical strategies and priorities into a top-tier engineering organization, systems, and execution.

• Develop and scale red-teaming tools and products.

• Implement systems for attacker simulation and the evaluation of output severity.

• Maintain and enhance vulnerability databases, statistical analysis tools, and reporting infrastructure.

• Create automated solutions for red-teaming, jailbreak integration, and workflow agents.

• Construct, test, and improve secure sandbox architecture for assessing advanced AI systems.

• Expand infrastructure and tools for CBRN, cyber, and loss-of-control evaluations.

• Design architecture for external platform contributions and integrate AI evaluation ecosystems like Inspect.

• Connect engineering systems with testing workflows, private disclosures, public reports, benchmarks, and leaderboards.

• Build and lead a team of engineers, while also recruiting or developing managers.

• Mentor and oversee team members, creating resources for skill development and knowledge transfer.

• Design recruitment pipelines and act as the hiring manager for engineers, engineering managers, and other positions.

• Contribute to the overall technical and product strategy of the division.

• Identify, prioritize, and address engineering bottlenecks.

• Collaborate with division leadership on technical direction, engineering systems, red-teaming methods, evaluations, safeguards, and research.

• Work alongside the company engagements and testing team to enhance feedback loops.

• Collaborate with FAR.AI teams to translate technical concepts and discoveries into tangible real-world impacts.

⛳️ Requirements

• Proven experience in software engineering, AI, or related computer engineering fields like cybersecurity or MLOps.

• Established history of managing, developing, and leading technical teams, including building startups from the ground up and managing managers in scaling environments.

• Familiarity with coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor.

• Proficient in Python.

• Experience with LLM APIs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google.

• Knowledge of local LLM frameworks such as vLLM.

• Experience with evaluation frameworks like Inspect.

• Familiarity with LLM agents such as OpenClaw.

• Experience with cloud infrastructure, specifically GCP.

• Proficient with compute clusters like Kubernetes or Slurm.

• Ability to thrive in fast-paced, evolving environments.

• Demonstrated focus on mission and impact regarding frontier AI systems.

• Capacity to articulate technical solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Proven determination in reaching ambitious objectives.

• Leadership experience required.

• Willingness to build an engineering team starting from a small base.

• Willingness to operate at the necessary pace in a dynamic, uncertain environment.

• Preferred: experience in constructing, red-teaming, or assessing frontier LLMs or agentic systems, or in building safeguards.

• Preferred: background in developing technical teams and products in an entrepreneurial setting.

• Preferred: capability to uncover non-obvious, high-severity vulnerabilities in complex systems.

• Preferred: experience in adversarial ML or security.

• Preferred: previous collaboration with AI labs, security teams, or government safety institutes.

• Preferred: published research in AI safety, security, or robustness.

• Full-time availability of 40 hours per week.

• Flexibility to work across various time zones in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

🏝️ Benefits

• Coverage for work-related travel expenses.

• Reimbursement for work-related equipment expenses.

• Catered lunch and dinner provided at the Berkeley office.

• Visa sponsorship available for in-person employees located in the US or Singapore.

• Comprehensive full-time employment benefits through FAR.AI, FAR.Singapore, or an Employer of Record, depending on the location.

• Paid work trial opportunity.

• Global remote work options available.

• Flexible arrangements for working across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.