Principal, Special Projects
Center for Ai Safety
San Francisco, CA, USA
Posted on Feb 28, 2026
The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a leading research and advocacy organization focused on mitigating societal-scale risks from AI. Some of our past achievements include: releasing the most widely used measure of AI capabilities used by all major AI companies, running a large compute cluster to facilitate AI safety research which has been cited over 16,000 times, and publishing a global statement on AI Risk signed by Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio and top AI CEOs.
The Role
We’re hiring senior operators to own high-stakes projects and initiatives. You will identify high-impact opportunities, define strategy, and drive execution end-to-end. Above all, we need people who can operate autonomously: someone with the judgment to navigate complex decisions and the track record to be trusted with significant responsibility.
The scope is broad by design. Example projects include: partnering with the team behind #TeamTrees to run a public campaign on AGI risk, supporting researchers in building benchmarks for deception and weaponization risk, standing up an AI safety hub in Washington, DC, and finding ways to engage YouTubers and longform creators on AI safety. What unites these is the need for someone with the judgment and ability to take an ambiguous mandate and turn it into a concrete outcome, without needing to be managed closely.
Who We're Looking For
You’ve operated at a high level in fast-moving, high-stakes environments—and have the track record to prove it. Example profiles we're looking for include former startup Founders and COOs—people with both exceptional ability and judgment. Your specific background may look very different.
What You'll Do
- Own projects and initiatives end-to-end: identify opportunities, set strategy, build plans, and execute—with the authority to make real decisions along the way.
- Scope new projects end-to-end, defining objectives, deliverables, timelines, and budgets.
- Coordinate across researchers, vendors, policy partners, and external collaborators to move complex work forward.
- Stay agile when priorities shift: re-scope, re-prioritize, and adjust without losing momentum.
- Monitor risks and surface critical issues early, always with a recommended path forward.
What We're Looking For
- A track record of owning complex, ambiguous initiatives and delivering outsized results.
- The ability to scope new problem spaces quickly—defining goals, success metrics, and constraints through research, interviews, and good judgment.
- Consistently good judgment under uncertainty—you make sound calls with incomplete information, know when to move fast and when to slow down, and leadership can trust your decisions without reviewing every detail.
- Comfort operating with high autonomy: you find the path forward even when one isn’t obvious, and you escalate the right things at the right time.
- Strong analytical skills for evaluating feasibility, impact, and risk across very different domains.
- Excellent written and verbal communication—you can present complex ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Genuine interest in AI safety and the willingness to develop deep domain knowledge.
The Center for AI Safety is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, medical condition, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. In alignment with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.
If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact contact@safe.ai.
We value diversity and encourage individuals from all backgrounds to apply.
150000 - 250000 USD a year
Benefits:
Health insurance for you and your dependents
401K plan + 4% matching
Unlimited PTO
Lunch and dinner at the office
Annual Professional Development Stipend
Access to some of the top talent working on technical and conceptual research in AI safety