Field Strategist, Formal Methods

Atlas Ignota; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote in the US

Full benefits

Job summary

Atlas Ignota seeks a Field Strategist to architect interventions targeting AI risk, coordinating with experts and stakeholders to scope, validate, and fund them. The role emphasizes formal methods, strategic alignment, and building programs across research, industry, and government.

The candidate will lead problem statements, seek funding paths, and assemble teams to execute, with heavy emphasis on non-specialist communication and funder engagement.

Qualifications

• Formal methods fluency with experience in verification or formal specification languages such as Lean, Coq, Isabelle, Dafny, or TLA+.
• Ability to engage across research, industry, government, and funding bodies.
• Strong track record of building programs, partnerships, or initiatives in AI risk or related fields.

Responsibilities

• Develop and shepherd intervention write-ups addressing AI risk.
• Coordinate with experts, stakeholders, and funders to scope and validate interventions.
• Pitch funders, recruit project founders, and craft clear problem statements for non-specialists.

Skills

Formal methods fluency

Networking across research/industry/go

Strategy and program management

Funding pitches and fundraising

Communication with non-specialists

AI risk motivation

Education

PhD in Formal Methods or related field

Tools

Lean

Coq

Isabelle

Dafny

TLA+

Job description

About Atlas Ignota

Atlas Ignota is a nonprofit that identifies society-scale AI risks no institution owns, designs credible interventions, and recruits the right person or institution to run them. Atlas starts with the problem, then picks the approach that fits: a new organization, a program inside an existing institution, a standard, or a funding vehicle. Atlas is growing quickly and runs the FMxAI conference series (next edition: London, March 2027).

The Role

Field Strategists are the architects. They track several problems at once, scope and de-risk interventions with experts and stakeholders, and source the team that will execute them. Success means someone else runs it.

This Field Strategist owns the formal methods slice of Atlas’s portfolio: problems where formal methods can materially reduce AI risk, such as verified or attestable AI inference, secure-by-construction software for critical infrastructure, and AI-assisted verification at scale.

What Success Looks Like

• In your first six months: two or more complete intervention write-ups, each covering the risk, the proposed intervention, expert and decision-maker validation, funding paths, and the founder profile needed.
• Within a year: two to three interventions with committed funding paths, with at least one handed off to an execution team.

What We’re Looking For

• Genuine formal methods fluency (for example Lean, Rocq/Coq, Isabelle, seL4, Dafny, TLA+, or industrial verification), enough to know who’s doing what and what’s tractable versus hype.
• Enough technical depth to challenge an expert in an adjacent field, and the EQ to ask that same expert for a favor afterward.
• A strong professional network across research, industry, government, and funders, since much of the job is getting the right people in the room.
• A strategist and builder orientation rather than research for its own sake. Examples: a former DARPA/ARIA-style program manager, an industrial verification team lead (cloud, chip, aerospace, defense), or a formal methods PhD who moved into program management, venture studios, or policy.
• Comfort pitching funders, recruiting founders, and writing crisp problem statements for non-specialists.
• Serious motivation around AI risk. This isn’t a generic formal methods role.

Logistics

• Full-time, starting as soon as possible.
• Remote in the US. Many calls are in Pacific Time.
• About 20% travel.
• Full benefits.