Roles at frontier labs · Research specialties
AI Safety and Alignment Researcher
54 recorded · October 2, 2026
Safety and alignment teams study how models fail and how to prevent it: alignment research, misuse safeguards, red-teaming and the evaluations behind a release decision.
- Safety, red-teaming and misuse 78%
- Evals and benchmarks 67%
- Python 65%
- How language models work 54%
- Agents and tool use 54%
- Post-training and fine-tuning 43%
taught here course coming not taught
The numbers
- Recorded postings at 13 labs
- 54
- Median base pay middle half $326k to $440k, 35 U.S. bands
- $398k
- State no degree 6% require a PhD outright
- 61%
- Years asked, median of the 31 that state a minimum
- 4
These counts describe the October 2, 2026 snapshot; postings need a fresh check. Explore opportunities.
The recorded snapshot
Postings from 13 labs
In the labs' own words
In the labs' own words
“Strong foundations in experimentation, causal thinking, and/or observational inference; ability to design robust measurement under imperfect data.”
“Experience working with large language models, including prompting, fine-tuning, or evaluation”
“Experience with synthetic data generation pipelines, building evaluations and mitigations for non-verifiable tasks using methods such as LLM-as-a-judge, rubric-based rewards, etc.”
Your way in
Three doors to this role
- Door 1
Finishing a degree
17% mention publications
The way in is a program: 44 recorded in the snapshot
- Door 2
A software engineer
61% state no degree
What to add
- Door 3
A PhD
9% ask for distributed training
Engineering at scale
Asked often
The short answers
How much does a ai safety and alignment researcher at a frontier lab make?
The median U.S. base salary across 35 recorded ai safety and alignment researcher postings that publish a band is $398k; the middle half runs from $326k to $440k. Equity and bonus are not included.
Do you need a PhD to be a ai safety and alignment researcher?
61% of the 54 recorded postings state no degree at all, 30% mention a PhD or master's, and 6% require a PhD outright.
What skills do ai safety and alignment researcher postings ask for?
Most often: safety, red-teaming and misuse (78%), evals and benchmarks (67%), python (65%), how language models work (54%), agents and tool use (54%).
Which labs posted ai safety and alignment researcher roles in this snapshot?
As of October 2, 2026: OpenAI (17), Anthropic (16), Google DeepMind (5), Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) (4), Character.AI (2), Cohere (2), and 7 more.
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The board
Recorded postings, newest first
The newest 40 of 54. Each title opens the lab's own posting. By family: research scientists and engineers · fellowships, residencies and internships · software engineering at labs · machine learning engineers · ml systems and infrastructure
- Trust & Safety Engineer ↗
Lovable · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated
- Data Scientist, Trust & Safety ↗
Replit · Machine learning engineers · No degree stated · $210k to $310k base
- Software Engineer, Trust & Safety ↗
Vercel (v0) · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $196k to $294k base
- [Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London ↗
Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Anthropic Fellows Program, AI Safety & Security ↗
Anthropic · Fellowships, residencies and internships · No degree stated
- Data Engineer, Safeguards ↗
Anthropic · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $320k to $405k base
- Data Scientist, Safeguards ↗
Anthropic · Machine learning engineers · No degree stated · $285k to $380k base
- Engineering Manager, Safeguards ↗
Anthropic · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated
- Engineering Manager, Safeguards Review Tooling ↗
Anthropic · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $405k to $485k base
- Machine Learning Infrastructure Engineer, Safeguards Research ↗
Anthropic · ML systems and infrastructure · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base
- ML/Research Engineer, Safeguards ↗
Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base
- Red Team Engineer, Safeguards ↗
Anthropic · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $320k to $405k base
- Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment ↗
Anthropic · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $350k to $500k base
- Research Manager, Biological Safety ↗
Anthropic · Research in other fields · No degree stated · $405k to $485k base
- Research Scientist/Engineer, Biological Safety ↗
Anthropic · Research in other fields · No degree stated · $300k to $405k base
- Staff+ Site Reliability Engineer, Safeguards ML Infra ↗
Anthropic · ML systems and infrastructure · No degree stated · $320k to $485k base
- Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards ↗
Anthropic · Software engineering at labs · Bachelor's or equivalent · $320k to $485k base
- Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Human Review Tooling ↗
Anthropic · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $320k to $485k base
- Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Infrastructure ↗
Anthropic · Software engineering at labs · Bachelor's or equivalent
- Research Engineer, AI Safety & Alignment ↗
Character.AI · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $225k to $400k base
- Software Engineer, Backend/Applied ML (Safety & Integrity) ↗
Character.AI · Machine learning engineers · Bachelor's degree · $150k to $300k base
- Senior Member of Technical Staff, Safety and Security for Agents ↗
Cohere · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Senior Research Engineer - Safety Tooling and Data ↗
Cohere · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated
- Research Scientist, AGI Safety and Alignment, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · Bachelor's or equivalent
- Research Scientist, Gemini Agent Safety, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Research Scientist, Gemini Safety and Behavior, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Research Scientist, Safety Oversight, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Research Scientist, Safety Oversight, DeepMind ↗
Google DeepMind · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Senior Security Engineer (AI Safety), London, Lausanne ↗
Isomorphic Labs · Machine learning engineers · Bachelor's degree
- AI Research Scientist - MSL FAIR Alignment ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- AI Research Scientist, AI Safety and Security ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience
- Data Scientist, Meta Superintelligence Labs (Safety) ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Machine learning engineers · PhD required
- Research Engineer, Safety Evaluation ↗
Meta (Superintelligence Labs and FAIR) · Research scientists and engineers · PhD required
- Data Scientist, Preparedness ↗
OpenAI · Machine learning engineers · No degree stated · $345k to $385k base
- Data Scientist, Safety ↗
OpenAI · Machine learning engineers · No degree stated · $265k to $380k base
- Fullstack Software Engineer, Child Safety Tools & Systems ↗
OpenAI · Software engineering at labs · No degree stated · $266k to $385k base
- Researcher, Agent Safety, Oversight and System Mitigations ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Researcher, Agent Safety, Training and Evaluations ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $380k to $500k base
- Researcher, Alignment ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · PhD or equivalent experience · $295k to $500k base
- Researcher, Alignment CoT Monitorability ↗
OpenAI · Research scientists and engineers · No degree stated · $295k to $500k base
