JOB SUMMARY

The AI Security Institute is the largest team in a government dedicated to understanding AI capabilities and risks in the world.
Our mission is to equip governments with an empirical understanding of advanced AI systems. We conduct research to understand the capabilities and impacts of advanced AI and develop and test risk mitigations. We focus on risks with security implications, including the potential of AI to assist with the development of chemical and biological weapons, how it can be used to carry out cyber-attacks, enable crimes such as fraud, and the possibility of loss of control.
The risks from AI are not sci-fi, they are urgent. By combining the agility of a tech start-up with the expertise and mission-driven focus of government, we’re building a unique and innovative organisation to prevent AI’s harms from impeding its potential.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The AI Security Institute is a unique and exciting professional challenge. Our team is a diverse and multidisciplinary group from a broad range of personal and professional backgrounds. The successful candidate will make a significant personal impact on some of the most difficult problems in the field. If you want a job with high agency, high impact, and exceptional opportunities to develop and grow – then AISI is the perfect place for you.
This role sits in the engineering team, a core part of AISI’s Research Unit. The Research Unit is a dynamic team comprised of technical researchers and delivery staff who work collaboratively to scope and deliver technical work. Our delivery specialists are integral to our success: they are the driving force behind our research, unblocking issues, managing risk, and maintaining the high standards and velocity we expect across all our work.
The post holder will provide dedicated, expert delivery support to AISI’s engineering team, functioning as a core member of the team and contributing directly to the roadmap and design of our products. The engineering team builds and develops AISI’s research platform, a bespoke cloud environment built for evaluating advanced AI models, as well as AISI’s open-source products like Inspect and a growing roster of internal applications that support researchers in their work.
It’s okay if you haven’t worked in a similar role (like product owner) before, as long as you are a pace setter, fixer, and doer. An understanding of software engineering practices including compute is essential, and familiarity with technical aspects of AI or ML research is preferred.
The post-holder’s portfolio will cover a range of high impact responsibilities that support engineering velocity and establish technical enablers for AISI’s research:
• Product discovery: developing and maintaining relationships with our key Internal and external stakeholders, to understand their research roadmaps and plan our future products
• Open-sourcing: supporting our open-source strategy and advancing our projects to public release, to help uplift the global AI research community and advance AISI’s technical public profile
• Compute: analysing compute usage and spending to produce actionable insights, and working with internal and external stakeholders on how to optimise for highest productivity
• Documentation: ensuring the tech products we deliver to researchers are truly self-service, through a combination of design collaboration and thorough documentation (including architecture, background, and examples)
• Recruitment: support AISI’s ambitious growth by contributing to external community-building and relationship development
• Commercial: support the team with commercial resources when necessary, navigating procurement processes and assurances on behalf of the team

PERSON SPECIFICATION

We are seeking candidates with strong professional experience in commercial roles.

Essential skills/experience criteria, include:

• Track record of delivery: You have supported delivery of challenging projects interacting with public sector procurement, contracts and grant agreements.
• Engineering mindset: You have worked collaboratively with software engineers on technical projects in a directly contributing or a supporting role, and understand the nuances of Agile practices.
• Agency and autonomy: you work proactively and take ownership and accountability of your own tasks and work.
• Managing parallel projects: You excel in running multiple complex projects in parallel and deliver them to a very high standard, continually re-assessing priorities and protecting critical deliverables from being knocked off course.
• Mission alignment: You are deeply motivated by AISI’s mission and its role in the wider AI safety and research ecosystem.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills: including the ability to influence and engage a wider range of stakeholders.

DESIRABLE SKILLS/EXPERIENCE CRITERIA

• Experience in a technical environment, or in a start-up, especially as a product owner or similar.
• Experience with AWS or other cloud providers, especially analysis of resource usage and billing.

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements

Operational Delivery