Senior Software Engineer - Platform

Metr; Berkeley (CA); On-site; USD 240,000 - 319,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading non-profit organization focused on AI safety is seeking an experienced software developer to design and develop a robust model evaluation platform. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in building large-scale systems and a strong collaborative mindset. This role offers the opportunity to work in a fast-paced environment while contributing to critical research efforts in AI safety.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software development experience.
• Extensive experience building fast and reliable large-scale systems.
• Experience with containerization and cloud infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop a robust model evaluation platform.
• Collaborate closely with researchers to understand their needs.
• Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code.

Skills

Collaboration

Problem Solving

User-focused Design

Tools

Python

TypeScript

AWS

Kubernetes

Job description

About METR

METR is a non-profit that conducts empirical research to determine whether frontier AI models pose a significant threat to humanity. It is robustly good for civilization to have a clear understanding of what types of danger AI systems pose, and know how high the risk is. You can learn more about our goals from our published talks (overall goals, recent update).

Some highlights of our work so far

- Establishing autonomous replication evals: Thanks to our work, it’s now taken for granted that autonomous replication (the ability for a model to independently copy itself to different servers, obtain more GPUs, etc) should be tested for.

- Pre-release evaluations: We’ve worked with OpenAI and Anthropic to evaluate their models pre-release, and our research has been widely cited by policymakers, AI labs, and within government.

- Inspiring lab evaluation efforts: Multiple leading AI companies are building their own internal evaluation teams, inspired by our work.

- Early commitments from labs: The safety frameworks of Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic all credit or endorse our work in developing responsible scaling policies

We have been mentioned by the UK government, Time Magazine, and others. We’re sufficiently connected to relevant parties (labs, governments, and academia) that any good work we do or insights we uncover can quickly be leveraged.

We are a motivated, fast-paced, growing team (currently ~30 people). Candidates should be excited about working entrepreneurially in a rapidly changing environment while helping to strengthen the organization's operational rigor.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop a robust model evaluation platform
• Help shape the technology architecture as METR scales
• Collaborate closely with the researchers to understand their needs
• Identify and implement improvements to core research workflows
• Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code
• Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues efficiently
• Contribute to technical documentation and knowledge sharing
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship

Requirements

• 7+ years of professional software development experience (or equivalent demonstrated expertise)
• Extensive experience building fast and reliable large-scale systems
• Experience with containerization and container orchestration
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, preferably AWS
• Experience building robust, well-tested software, especially in Python
• Working knowledge of TypeScript for frontend development
• Founder's mindset—taking ownership, driving progress, and guiding through challenges
• Ability to identify workflow improvements and implement effective solutions
• Strong collaboration skills to work across engineering and researcher teams
• User-focused design, cross-team communication, and ability to explain technical constraints and tradeoffs

Nice to Haves

• Experience with Kubernetes orchestration
• Data engineering, versioned pipeline development, and efficient data analysis
• Experience with CI/CD for automated testing and deployment
• Experience with application and infrastructure security and hardening
• Integration experience with third-party services like Airtable and Slack
• Rapid prototyping, MVP development, pragmatic problem-solving, and risk mitigation
• Systems architecture, simplicity in design, and strategic problem-solving

$240,558 - $318,138 a year

We encourage you to apply even if your background may not seem like the perfect fit! We would rather review a larger pool of applications than risk missing out on a promising candidate for the position. If you lack US work authorization, we can likely sponsor a cap-exempt H-1B visa for this role.

We are committed to diversity and equal opportunity in all aspects of our hiring process. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We welcome and encourage all qualified candidates to apply for our open positions