Protection Scientist Engineer, Integrity

OpenAI; City of Utica (NY); On-site; USD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is looking for a Protection Scientist Engineer in New York to ensure robust abuse monitoring and investigate escalations not caught by existing safety systems. The role blends data science, machine learning, and policy development, requiring at least 4 years of technical analysis experience, particularly with SQL and Python. Candidates should be adept at collaborating with product and engineering teams to mitigate risks. OpenAI promotes equal opportunity and welcomes diverse applicants.

Qualifications

• At least 4 years of experience in technical analysis and detection.
• Experience in trust and safety or engineering teams.
• Background in basic data engineering and familiarity with machine learning.

Responsibilities

• Scope and implement abuse monitoring requirements for new product launches.
• Improve processes to sustain monitoring operations for existing products.
• Collaborate with teams to understand key risks and develop mitigation strategies.

Skills

SQL

Python

Technical analysis

Data engineering

Investigation mindset

Machine learning principles

Job description

About The Team

OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that general‑purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We believe that achieving our goal requires real‑world deployment and iterative updates based on what we learn. The Intelligence and Investigations team supports this mission by identifying and investigating misuse of our products—especially new types of abuse—allowing partner teams to develop data‑backed policies and build scalable safety mitigations. Precisely understanding abuse enables us to safely enable users to build useful things with our products.

About The Role

Protection Science Engineering is an interdisciplinary role that blends data science, machine learning, investigation, and policy/protocol development. As a Protection Scientist Engineer within Integrity and Investigations, you will design and build systems to proactively identify and enforce against abuse on OpenAI’s products. Responsibilities include ensuring robust abuse monitoring for new products, sustaining monitoring for existing ones, and prototyping and incubating defense systems for our highest‑risk harms. You will also investigate critical escalations that are not caught by existing safety systems, requiring deep product knowledge and cross‑functional collaboration with product, policy, and engineering teams.

This role can be based in San Francisco, DC, or NY and includes an on‑call rotation that may involve resolving urgent escalations outside normal work hours. Some investigations may involve sensitive content, including sexual, violent, or otherwise disturbing material.

Responsibilities

• Scope and implement abuse monitoring requirements for new product launches.
• Improve processes to sustain monitoring operations for existing products, including automating monitoring subtasks.
• Prototype and mature detection, review, and enforcement systems for major harms.
• Collaborate with Product, Policy, Ops, and Investigative teams to understand key risks and develop mitigation strategies, and work with Engineering to ensure sufficient data and scalable tooling.

Qualifications

• At least 4 years of experience in technical analysis and detection, especially with SQL and Python.
• Experience in trust and safety, policy, enforcement, or engineering teams—an investigative mindset is essential.
• Background in basic data engineering (building core tables, writing production‑grade data pipelines) and familiarity with machine learning principles and execution. Basic software development skills are a plus, as the role involves production‑level code.
• Experience scaling and automating processes, especially those involving language models.

Equal Opportunity Statement

OpenAI is an equal‑opportunity employer and does not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristic. For additional information, please see OpenAI’s affirmative action and equal employment opportunity policy statement.

Background Check

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law. Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for U.S.‑based candidates. In addition, the job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations. Applicants may request reasonable accommodations for disabilities, and requests can be made via the provided link.