Nuclear Safeguards Expert - Red Team

Mercor; Paris; Sur place; EUR 60 000 - 90 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

Mercor is assembling a panel of nuclear domain experts to red-team frontier AI models, testing whether a model can correctly judge the misuse potential of a technical request. You will write challenging prompts labeled across benign, dual-use and adversarial levels, evaluate responses against policy standards, and draft reference answers with the underlying rationale.

This role emphasizes clear technical writing and exposure to safeguards concepts, with the ability to explain decisions to

Qualifications

• Experience in safeguards, nonproliferation, and red-teaming preferred.

Responsabilités

• Write challenging single-turn prompts labeled across benign, dual-use, and adversarial levels.
• Evaluate model responses against defined policy standards.
• Write reference answers with detailed rationales demonstrating why a response is acceptable or not.

Connaissances

Safeguards analysis

Nuclear engineering

Red-teaming experience

IAEA/Euratom knowledge

Nonproliferation

Description du poste

About the work

Mercor is assembling a panel of nuclear domain experts to red-team frontier AI models. The goal is to test whether a model can correctly judge the misuse potential of a technical request — answering legitimate questions fully while refusing genuinely dangerous ones.

You will:

• Write challenging single-turn prompts in your domain, labelled across three levels: benign, dual-use, and adversarial.

• Evaluate the responses that come back against a defined policy standard, and judge whether each was handled correctly.

• Write the reference answer; what a correct response looks like, and the technical reasoning for why.

Background we're looking for

We're looking for fuel-cycle depth plus some exposure to how material is controlled, accounted for, or diverted. Safeguards and nonproliferation experience is the strongest signal. The red-teaming task is to write prompts that pull a model past the boundary; the plausible research framing, the question that looks academic until you know what it's actually asking for — and then to explain in writing why the response was or wasn't acceptable. Examples of relevant backgrounds (Ideally w/Red-teaming experience):Safeguards Analyst / IAEA or Euratom Inspector — material accountancy, inspection regimes, Additional Protocol.Nuclear Engineer, Fuel Cycle — enrichment, reprocessing and criticality, end to end.Nuclear Security Engineer (national laboratory) — MPC&A, insider threat, physical protection design.Nuclear Forensics Scientist — radioxenon monitoring, attribution, detection and characterisation.Nonproliferation Analyst — export control, NSG trigger lists, acquisition and smuggling pathways.

What the work requires

This is writing-intensive work. Every judgment you make needs a written rationale that a non-specialist can follow. Prior technical writing, published research, or expert witness experience is a strong signal — please include a sample or link. You will also be reading and writing about misuse scenarios in your field for sustained periods. We brief experts on this in advance, and you can pause or step away at any point without penalty.

Before you apply

Your work here will not involve, and must not draw on, classified or export-controlled information, or anything covered by an NDA or prepublication review obligation. If you hold such obligations you may still be a good fit — tell us in your application and we will scope the work accordingly.