Data Scientist, Safety Systems at OpenAI

San Francisco, California, United States

OpenAI Logo
$255,000 – $405,000Compensation
Senior (5 to 8 years), Expert & Leadership (9+ years)Experience Level
Full TimeJob Type
UnknownVisa
Artificial Intelligence, TechnologyIndustries

Requirements

  • 5+ years experience in a quantitative role navigating highly ambiguous environments, ideally as a founding data scientist or team lead at a hyper-growth product company or research org
  • Proven leadership skills, including leading multiple data scientists and cross-functional teams
  • Expertise in defining and implementing metrics, with a track record of operationalizing new feature and product-level metrics from scratch
  • Excellent communication skills with demonstrated ability to communicate with product managers, engineers, and executives alike
  • Strategic insights that extend beyond traditional statistical significance testing
  • Experience in trust and safety, integrity, anti-abuse, or related fields (preferred)
  • Demonstrated prior experience in NLP, large language models, or generative AI (preferred)
  • Strong statistical background, including knowledge of sampling, regression, causal analysis, and more (preferred)

Responsibilities

  • Lead efforts in understanding and measuring the real-world safety impacts of OpenAI’s current and upcoming products
  • Uncover new ways to improve approaches to measuring and mitigating harm and abuse
  • Develop and implement statistical methods necessary to operationalize safety-related metrics
  • Provide direction, guidance, and coordination of projects in the space
  • Establish a data-driven culture within Safety Systems by driving the definition, tracking, and operationalizing of feature-, product-, and company-level metrics
  • Create and disseminate dashboards, reports, and tools that enable the team and company to answer safety-related questions independently
  • Develop safety data flywheel and provide safety research with production insights/data for training and evaluation

Skills

Key technologies and capabilities for this role

Statistical MethodsData AnalysisMetrics DevelopmentDashboard CreationData VisualizationSQLPython

Questions & Answers

Common questions about this position

What is the salary range for the Data Scientist, Safety Systems role?

The salary range is $255K - $405K.

Is this role remote or based in an office?

This role is based in our San Francisco HQ, with relocation assistance offered to new employees.

What skills and experience are required for this position?

Candidates need 5+ years in a quantitative role in ambiguous environments, proven leadership leading data scientists and cross-functional teams, expertise in defining and implementing metrics, excellent communication skills, and strategic insights beyond statistical testing.

What is the Safety Systems team like at OpenAI?

The Safety Systems team is dedicated to ensuring the safety, robustness, and reliability of AI models and their deployment, addressing emerging safety issues and developing solutions for safe deployment of advanced models and future AGI.

What makes a candidate stand out for this Data Scientist role?

Candidates with experience in trust and safety, integrity, anti-abuse, or related fields, plus prior experience in NLP, large language models, or generative AI, would be an especially great fit, alongside the core requirements of leadership and metrics expertise.

OpenAI

Develops safe and beneficial AI technologies

About OpenAI

OpenAI develops and deploys artificial intelligence technologies aimed at benefiting humanity. The company creates advanced AI models capable of performing various tasks, such as automating processes and enhancing creativity. OpenAI's products, like Sora, allow users to generate videos from text descriptions, showcasing the versatility of its AI applications. Unlike many competitors, OpenAI operates under a capped profit model, which limits the profits it can make and ensures that excess earnings are redistributed to maximize the social benefits of AI. This commitment to safety and ethical considerations is central to its mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) serves all of humanity.

San Francisco, CaliforniaHeadquarters
2015Year Founded
$18,433.2MTotal Funding
LATE_VCCompany Stage
AI & Machine LearningIndustries
1,001-5,000Employees

Benefits

Health insurance
Dental and vision insurance
Flexible spending account for healthcare and dependent care
Mental healthcare service
Fertility treatment coverage
401(k) with generous matching
20-week paid parental leave
Life insurance (complimentary)
AD&D insurance (complimentary)
Short-term/long-term disability insurance (complimentary)
Optional buy-up life insurance
Flexible work hours and unlimited paid time off (we encourage 4+ weeks per year)
Annual learning & development stipend
Regular team happy hours and outings
Daily catered lunch and dinner
Travel to domestic conferences

Risks

Elon Musk's legal battle may pose financial and reputational challenges for OpenAI.
Customizable ChatGPT personas could lead to privacy and ethical concerns.
Competitors like Anthropic raising capital may intensify market competition.

Differentiation

OpenAI's capped profit model prioritizes ethical AI development over unlimited profit.
OpenAI's AI models, like Sora, offer unique video creation from text descriptions.
OpenAI's focus on AGI aims to create AI systems smarter than humans.

Upsides

OpenAI's $6.6 billion funding boosts its AI research and computational capacity.
Customizable ChatGPT personas enhance user engagement and satisfaction.
OpenAI's 'Operator' AI agent could revolutionize workforce automation by 2025.

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