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OpenAI's Frontier Assurance team is seeking a Research Program Manager to build programs that bring independent expertise into frontier AI safety decisions and make the evidence behind those decisions understandable to the public.
You will lead external research partnerships and third-party assessments, coordinate public safety documentation, and develop new approaches to independent scrutiny and transparency. Working across research, engineering, product, policy, and communications, you will help ensure external findings inform concrete decisions and that public explanations accurately reflect the evidence, limitations, and remaining uncertainty.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design and run third-party assessment programs for frontier models and safeguards, including independent evaluations, adversarial testing, and embedded auditing. Work with researchers and external partners to define assessment questions, scope, access, timelines, and deliverables.
- Build and manage strategic research partnerships with third-party evaluators, academic labs, and independent experts, prioritizing expertise, independence, and diversity of perspectives. Enable rigorous research that challenges internal assumptions.
- Translate external findings into actionable recommendations for safeguards, deployment, product, and policy. Track follow-up actions and ensure partners understand how their input was considered.
- Partner with research, product, policy, and communications teams to explain the evidence behind OpenAI's safety approach: what was tested, what was learned, how findings shaped decisions, and where limitations and uncertainty remain. Translate complex technical results into accessible communication for expert and public audiences.
- Lead public transparency programs, including system cards, summaries of third-party assessments, and updates on significant findings. Develop approaches to sharing methods, results, and limitations while protecting privacy and security.
- Create channels for researchers and civil society to provide feedback and inform future assessments and transparency efforts.
- Own program goals, milestones, dependencies, and risks, keeping internal and external stakeholders informed and resolving obstacles to execution.
The role is based in San Francisco with a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week. Relocation assistance is offered.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:
- Deep experience in research partnerships and program management with technical and research teams.
- Understanding of AI evaluations and measurement; ability to engage with technical teams on evaluation design and results.
- Ability to interpret evaluation findings and communicate what they do and do not establish, including methodological limitations, uncertainty, and disagreement.
- Experience building research partnerships and managing external stakeholders, especially academic researchers and independent experts.
- Ability to synthesize technical and social science research into clear executive summaries and accessible explanations for public audiences.
- Experience delivering technical publications or public reports across multiple contributors, with judgment about what to share, with whom, and when.
- Cross-functional experience across product, research, and engineering teams; ability to coordinate complex programs with policy and communications partners.
- Understanding of and interest in frontier AI safety and policy.
