Data Scientist, Safety

About the Role

Openai's Safety teams work to ensure that their products are safe, trusted, and resilient as frontier AI systems scale globally. The team tackles some of the company's most important challenges, including understanding and preventing misuse and misalignment, intercepting fraud and abuse, and protecting vulnerable users. As a Data Scientist, you will be working closely with cross-functional teams, including Product, Engineering, Policy, Research, and Operations, to improve safety outcomes.

The Safety team at Openai is committed to building a safe and trustworthy AI ecosystem. As a Data Scientist on this team, you will have the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects, from measuring harmful or abusive behavior to designing experiments and causal analyses to understand product, policy, and mitigation impacts.

What You Will Do

• Measure harmful or abusive behavior across Openai's products
• Detect fraud, manipulation, and coordinated misuse
• Evaluate and improve safety classifiers, rules systems, mitigation systems, and human review workflows
• Design experiments and causal analyses to understand product, policy, and mitigation impacts
• Build prevalence estimators, dashboards, monitoring systems, and executive decision frameworks
• Diagnose gaps in safety and integrity systems using behavioral and product data
• Help quantify and navigate false positive / false negative tradeoffs
• Translate ambiguous safety risks into measurable problems and evidence-based recommendations
• Partner with cross-functional teams to improve safety outcomes
• Build zero-to-one analytical systems in rapidly evolving domains

What We Are Looking For

• Strong statistical reasoning and analytical judgment
• Experience with experimentation, causal inference, or observational analysis
• Strong SQL and Python skills
• Experience working with messy, incomplete, or noisy datasets
• Ability to structure open-ended business or risk problems
• Excellent communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• High ownership and comfort operating independently
• 3+ years of experience in a related field
• Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field (e.g., mathematics, statistics, computer science)

Nice to Have

• Experience working in Trust & Safety, Integrity, or a related field
• Knowledge of AI/ML model measurement and evaluation
• Background in Alignment and AI safety research
• Experience with biosecurity, synthetic biology, infectious diseases, or computational biology

Benefits and Perks

• Competitive salary and equity package
• Comprehensive health insurance
• Generous PTO and holiday policy
• Remote work stipend and equipment budget
• Opportunities for professional growth and development
• Collaborative and dynamic work environment
• Access to cutting-edge technology and tools
• Flexible working hours and work-life balance

• Make sure to highlight your experience with SQL, Python, and experimentation in your resume and cover letter.
• Be prepared to discuss your approach to structuring open-ended business or risk problems and communicating with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Showcase your ability to work independently and take ownership of projects, as well as your experience working with cross-functional teams.
• Familiarize yourself with Openai's mission and values, and be prepared to discuss how your skills and experience align with the company's goals.
• Consider creating a portfolio of your work, including examples of your experience with data analysis and visualization, to share with the hiring team.
• Be prepared to negotiate your salary and benefits package, and don't be afraid to ask about the company's approach to work-life balance and flexible working hours.