Senior Research Scientist | Model Steering

WHY FACULTY? We established Faculty in 2014 because we thought that AI would be the most important technology of our time. Since then, we’ve worked with over 350 global customers to transform their performance through human-centric AI. You can read about our real-world impact here. We don’t chase hype cycles. We innovate, build and deploy responsible AI which moves the needle - and we know a thing or two about doing it well. We bring an unparalleled depth of technical, product and delivery expertise to our clients who span government, finance, retail, energy, life sciences and defence. Our business, and reputation, is growing fast and we’re always on the lookout for individuals who share our intellectual curiosity and desire to build a positive legacy through technology. AI is an epoch-defining technology, join a company where you’ll be empowered to envision its most powerful applications, and to make them happen. ABOUT THE TEAM We are the central research and development team driving Faculty's broader AI safety charter. We pioneer fundamental and applied technical AI safety research, producing rigorous scientific outputs—including publications, tooling, and technical reports—that advance the theory and practice of AI safety and directly shape the work of frontier AI labs, government agencies, and national security institutes. Our research spans both black-box and white-box approaches to understanding and steering AI systems. We care deeply about interpretability, faithfulness, and principled mitigation strategies, with a particular focus on the mechanistic and behavioural study of transformer-based large language models and long-running agentic systems. We operate at the cutting edge of the field, with current research threads including: * System Understanding: Interpretability, steering vectors, and the science of evaluations. * Control & Alignment: Goal drift, machine unlearning, and uncertainty calibration. * Societal Safeguards: Misinformation mitigation and robust deployment boundaries. We collaborate closely with the Faculty's wider AI safety team, a group with a well-established track record in capability evaluations and red-teaming for misuse risk across CBRN, cybersecurity, and international security. That work has been conducted for several leading frontier model developers and national safety institutes, and has been featured in OpenAI's o1 system card and Meta Muse Spark’s Safety & Preparedness Report. ABOUT THE ROLE As a Senior Research Scientist at Faculty, you will join our high-impact R&D team to lead original technical research that advances our understanding of safe AI systems. Operating with high agency, you will balance scientific rigour with practical relevance to shape the future of safe AI deployment. Working closely with our broader AI safety practice, your scientific outputs—ranging from peer-reviewed publications to technical tooling—will directly inform frontier labs and government institutes, driving our entrepreneurial ambition to build a safer technological future. WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING: * Leading original technical research in AI safety, steering projects from initial research question to high-impact publication. * Shaping the research agenda by identifying high-impact projects that balance scientific rigour with real-world relevance. * Contributing thought leadership and deep technical expertise to support wider evaluation and red-teaming efforts. * Supporting our positioning as a global leader through active external engagement with frontier labs and government stakeholders. * Developing robust, reproducible research code and engineering infrastructure to accelerate our scientific discovery. * Collaborating with cross-functional safety teams to translate fundamental research into practical mitigation strategies. WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR: * Strong track record in AI research, evidenced by publications or equivalent experience, alongside the ability to tackle open, unsolved problems. * Capability to own research end-to-end, moving independently from framing novel problems to generating high-quality research artifacts. * Passion for technical AI safety, whether developed in academia, industry labs, or evaluation roles. * Deep knowledge of language models and generative AI architectures, including white-box techniques beyond API-level access. * Strong foundation in machine learning fundamentals, particularly in robustness, explainability, or uncertainty estimation. * Proficiency with deep learning frameworks like PyTorch and the Python skills required to build robust research tooling. OUR RECRUITMENT ETHOS We aim to grow the best team - not the most similar one. We know that diversity of individuals fosters diversity of thought, and that strengthens our principle of seeking truth. And we know from experience that diverse teams deliver better work, relevant to the world in which we live. We’re united by a deep intellectual curiosity and desire to use our abilities for measurable positive impact. We strongly encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, religions and sexual orientations. Some of our standout benefits: * Unlimited Annual Leave Policy * Private healthcare and dental * Enhanced parental leave * Family-Friendly Flexibility & Flexible working * Sanctus Coaching * Hybrid Working If you don’t feel you meet all the requirements, but are excited by the role and know you bring some key strengths, please don't hesitate in applying as you might be right for this role, or other roles. We are open to conversations about part-time hours.

WHY FACULTY? We established Faculty in 2014 because we thought that AI would be the most important technology of our time. Since then, we’ve worked with over 350 global customers to transform their performance through human-centric AI. You can read about our real-world impact here. We don’t chase hype cycles. We innovate, build and deploy responsible AI which moves the needle - and we know a thing or two about doing it well. We bring an unparalleled depth of technical, product and delivery expertise to our clients who span government, finance, retail, energy, life sciences and defence. Our business, and reputation, is growing fast and we’re always on the lookout for individuals who share our intellectual curiosity and desire to build a positive legacy through technology. AI is an epoch-defining technology, join a company where you’ll be empowered to envision its most powerful applications, and to make them happen. ABOUT THE TEAM We are the central research and development team within Faculty's broader AI safety charter. Our group focuses on fundamental and applied technical AI safety research, producing rigorous scientific outputs - publications, tooling, technical reports & evaluations - that advance the theory, practice and understanding of AI risks, and directly inform the work of frontier AI labs, government agencies, and national security institutes. Our research spans fundamental research using black-box and white-box approaches to understand and steer AI systems, to building and advancing safety evaluations which better understand and quantify risks in AI. We care deeply about mechanistic understanding and scientific rigour in measuring risks in AI systems. Current research threads include (but are not limited to) uncertainty calibration, goal drift, misinformation mitigation, steering vectors, robust safeguard measurement and the science of evaluations. We collaborate closely with the Faculty's wider AI safety team, a group with a well-established track record in capability evaluations and red-teaming for misuse risk across CBRN, cybersecurity, societal and psychosocial harms. That work has been conducted for several leading frontier model developers and national safety institutes, and has been featured in model cards and safety reports from Anthropic, GDM, Meta & OpenAI. ABOUT THE ROLE As a Senior Research Scientist at Faculty, you will lead the development of cutting-edge safety evaluations to quantify AI risks in critical domains like CBRN and Cyber. Joining our high-impact R&D team, you will drive original research that advances safety methodology while collaborating with delivery teams building evaluations and red-teaming for frontier labs. This is a high-agency opportunity to conduct technical AI safety research that produces scientific outputs shaping the future of safe real-world AI deployment. WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING * Leading the development of novel safety evaluations in high-impact domains such as CBRN and Cyber to quantify emerging risks. * Executing original technical research in AI safety evaluation methods, taking ideas from concept to publication. * Shaping the R&D agenda by identifying strategic opportunities to advance safety evaluation methodology across Faculty and the broader ecosystem. * Contributing thought leadership and deep technical expertise to client delivery projects, evaluation work, and red-teaming for frontier labs. * Representing Faculty’s scientific leadership through active external engagement with the global research community, frontier labs, and government stakeholders. WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR * A track record of owning research end-to-end—from identifying novel problems to publication—driven by scientific curiosity and tenacity. * Hands-on experience designing and building AI evaluations or benchmarks, alongside a strong ability to reason about construct validity and mitigate confounds. * Expertise in red-teaming, adversarial testing, jailbreaking, indirect prompt injection, and assessing the robustness of model safeguards. * Strong foundational skills in experimental design, statistical analysis, and uncertainty quantification, including Bayesian methods. * Deep knowledge of language models, generative AI architectures, training methodologies, and safety mitigation techniques. * Solid Python proficiency combined with the engineering discipline required to build robust, reproducible research. NICE TO HAVES * Experience in threat and risk modelling. * Background or knowledge in high-risk domains such as CBRN or Cybersecurity. * A history of high-impact AI research, evidenced by top-tier publications or equivalent practical achievements. OUR RECRUITMENT ETHOS We aim to grow the best team - not the most similar one. We know that diversity of individuals fosters diversity of thought, and that strengthens our principle of seeking truth. And we know from experience that diverse teams deliver better work, relevant to the world in which we live. We’re united by a deep intellectual curiosity and desire to use our abilities for measurable positive impact. We strongly encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, religions and sexual orientations. Some of our standout benefits: * Unlimited Annual Leave Policy * Private healthcare and dental * Enhanced parental leave * Family-Friendly Flexibility & Flexible working * Sanctus Coaching * Hybrid Working If you don’t feel you meet all the requirements, but are excited by the role and know you bring some key strengths, please don't hesitate in applying as you might be right for this role, or other roles. We are open to conversations about part-time hours.