Alignment Red Team - Research Engineer/Research Scientist

The AI Security Institute is the world's largest and best-funded team dedicated to understanding advanced AI risks and translating that knowledge into action. We’re in the heart of the UK government with direct lines to No. 10 (the Prime Minister's office), and we work with frontier developers and governments globally.

We’re here because governments are critical for advanced AI going well, and UK AISI is uniquely positioned to mobilise them. With our resources, unique agility and international influence, this is the best place to shape both AI development and government action.

The deadline for applying to this role is 18th October 2026, end of day, anywhere on Earth.

Team Description

Risks from misaligned AI systems are growing increasingly important as AI systems become more capable, autonomous, and integrated into society. Understanding these risks and stress-testing mitigations is crucial to ensuring advanced AI systems are developed and deployed safely and beneficially in the future.

The Alignment Red Team is a specialised subteam within AISI's wider Red Team focused on detecting and evaluating misalignment in frontier AI systems. We perform novel research to develop techniques for finding misalignment, and pre- and post-deployment evaluations of frontier AI systems to understand loss-of-control risks associated with models, such as deceptive alignment, research sabotage, and reward-seeking. We share our findings with frontier AI companies and the UK and allied governments, to inform their respective deployments, research, and policy-making. We also work directly with safety teams at frontier labs, sharing our evaluation findings to help improve their model alignment training and monitoring methodology.

We have conducted pre-deployment testing with multiple frontier AI companies for propensities related to research sabotage, cheating and unsanctioned cyber-attacks. We previously found that Claude models would sometimes refuse to help with benign AI safety research, an issue which Anthropic then evaluated for and fixed in their next model release.

We're seeking Research Engineers and Research Scientists to join our Alignment Red Team. We are open to hires at junior, senior, staff and principal research scientist/engineer levels.

Who we're looking for

We don't expect candidates to have all of these – they're additional signals that help us identify exceptional fits for specific aspects of the role.

Selection process

The interview process may vary from candidate to candidate, however, you should expect a typical process to include some technical proficiency tests, discussions with a cross-section of our team at AISI (including non-technical staff) and conversations with your team lead. The process will culminate in a conversation with members of the senior leadership team here at AISI.

Candidates should expect to go through some or all of the following stages once an application has been submitted:

We may be able to offer roles to applicant from any nationality or background. As such we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet the standard nationality requirements (opens in a new window).

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window). As part of the application process, we monitor statistics on D&I. You can see how we process this data here: Recruitment privacy notice - GOV.UK.

Impact you couldn't have anywhere else

Resources & access

Growth & autonomy

Life & family*

Annual salary is benchmarked to role scope and relevant experience. Most offers land between £65,000 and £145,000 made up of a base salary plus a technical allowance (take-home salary = base + technical allowance). An additional 28.97% employer pension contribution is paid on the base salary.

This role sits outside of the DDaT pay framework given the scope of this role requires in depth technical expertise in frontier AI safety, robustness and advanced AI architectures.

The full range of salaries are available below:

Additional Information

Use of AI in Applications

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Use of AI tools in recruitment

We may use AI tools to help our hiring teams review applications, for example by summarising application materials and helping us prioritise applications against the published criteria. People make every decision. AI tools do not decide the outcome of any application. Every decision is made by a member of our hiring team, and we do not make solely automated decisions about candidates. We only use the information you provide in your application. We do not use AI tools to collect information about you from other sources, including the internet. These tools are approved for use within AISI and operate in our secure environment. We process this information in line with our wider recruitment retention policy. You can ask how AI was used in relation to your application, request a human review, or object to AI being used, by contacting the hiring manager. This will not affect how your application is assessed.