Research Engineer, Frontier Evals & Environments

OpenAI; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading AI research company in Los Angeles is seeking exceptional research engineers. In this role, you will create ambitious RL environments and measure the capabilities of frontier models. The ideal candidate is passionate about AGI/ASI measurement and has strong engineering skills along with experience in ML and stochastic systems. Join to contribute to the advancement of safe AI technology.

Qualifications

• Passionate and knowledgeable about AGI/ASI measurement.
• Experienced in ML research engineering, stochastic systems, observability and monitoring.

Responsibilities

• Create ambitious RL environments to push our models to their limits.
• Work on measuring frontier model capabilities, skills, and behaviors.
• Develop new methodologies for exploring model behavior.
• Help steer training for our largest training runs.
• Design scalable systems to support continuous evaluation.
• Build self-improvement loops for automated model understanding.

Skills

Engineering and statistical analysis skills

Ability to think outside the box

Red-teaming mindset

Experience in ML research engineering

Stochastic systems expertise

Observability and monitoring knowledge

Application of LLMs

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

About the team

The Frontier Evals & Environments team builds north star model environments to drive progress towards safe AGI/ASI. This team builds ambitious environments to measure and steer our models, and creates self‑improvement loops to steer our training, safety, and launch decisions. Some of the team's open‑sourced evaluations include GDPval, SWE‑bench Verified, MLE‑bench, PaperBench, and SWE‑Lancer, and the team built and ran frontier evaluations for GPT4o, o1, o3, GPT 4.5, ChatGPT Agent, and GPT5. If you are interested in feeling firsthand the fast progress of our models, and steering them towards good, this is the team for you.

About you

We seek exceptional research engineers that can push the boundaries of our frontier models. Specifically, we are looking for those that will help us shape our empirical grasp of the whole spectrum of AI capabilities measurement and will own individual threads within this endeavor end‑to‑end.

In this role, you'll:

• Create ambitious RL environments to push our models to their limits
• Work on measuring frontier model capabilities, skills, and behaviors
• Develop new methodologies for automatically exploring the behavior of these models
• Help steer training for our largest training runs, and see the future first
• Design scalable systems and processes to support continuous evaluation
• Build self‑improvement loops to automate model understanding

We expect you to be:

• Passionate and knowledgeable about AGI/ASI measurement
• Strong engineering and statistical analysis skills
• Able to think outside the box and have a robust “red‑teaming mindset”
• Experienced in ML research engineering, stochastic systems, observability and monitoring, LLM‑enabled applications, and/or another technical domain applicable to AI evaluations
• Able to operate effectively in a dynamic and extremely fast‑paced research environment as well as scope and deliver projects end‑to‑end

It would be great if you also have:

• First‑hand experience in red‑teaming systems—be it computer systems or otherwise
• An ability to work cross‑functionally

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general‑purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and 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 US‑based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non‑public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.