{"id":877,"url":"https://alion.io/job/character-ai-research-engineer-ai-safety-alignment","title":"Research Engineer, AI Safety & Alignment","company":{"id":36,"name":"Character.AI","domain":"character.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/character-ai","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"D","score":40,"open_postings":13,"ghost_share":1,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-19T05:45:15Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Redwood City, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":225000,"max":400000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":400000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Interpretability","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"RLHF","optional":false},{"name":"A/B Testing","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"Explainable AI","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-10-03T21:34:52Z","employer_posted_date":"2025-10-03","last_verified_at":"2026-10-19T19:23:03Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":380,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":380},"description":"About the role and team\nJoining us as a Research Engineer, you'll be at the forefront of tackling one of the most critical challenges in AI today: safety and alignment. Your work will be pivotal in understanding and mitigating the risks of advanced AI, conducting foundational research to make our models safer, and solving the core technical problems of AI alignment -ensuring our models behave in accordance with human values and intentions.\nThe Safety team is dedicated to pioneering and implementing techniques that make our models more robust, honest, and harmless. As a Research Engineer, you will bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical application, writing high-quality code to test hypotheses and integrating successful safety solutions directly into our products. Your research will not only protect millions of users but also contribute to the broader scientific community's understanding of how to build safe, beneficial AI.\nWhat you'll do\nDevelop and implement novel evaluation methodologies and metrics to assess the safety and alignment of large language models.\n\nResearch and develop cutting-edge techniques for model alignment, value learning, and interpretability.\n\nConduct adversarial testing to proactively uncover potential vulnerabilities and failure modes in our models.\n\nAnalyze and mitigate biases, toxicity, and other harmful behaviors in large language models through techniques like reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) and fine-tuning.\n\nCollaborate with engineering and product teams to translate safety research into practical, scalable solutions and best practices.\n\nStay abreast of the latest advancements in AI safety research and contribute to the academic community through publications and presentations.\n\nWho you are\nHold a PhD (or equivalent experience) in a relevant field such as Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related discipline.\n\nWrite clear and clean production-facing and training code\n\nExperience working with GPUs (training, serving, debugging)\n\nExperience with data pipelines and data infrastructure\n\nStrong understanding of modern machine learning techniques, particularly transformers and reinforcement learning, with a focus on their safety implications.\n\nAre passionate about the responsible development of AI and dedicated to solving complex safety challenges.\n\nNice to Have\nExperience with product experimentation and A/B testing\n\nExperience training large models in a distributed setting\n\nFamiliarity with ML deployment and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker, cloud)\n\nExperience with explainable AI (XAI) and interpretability techniques.\n\nHave research in AI safety, alignment, ethics, or a related area.\n\nKnowledge of the broader societal and ethical implications of AI, including policy and governance.\n\nPublications in relevant academic journals or conferences in the field of machine learning\n\nAbout Character.AI\nCharacter.AI empowers people to connect, learn and tell stories through interactive entertainment. Over 20 million people visit Character.AI every month, using our technology to supercharge their creativity and imagination. Our platform lets users engage with tens of millions of characters, enjoy unlimited conversations, and embark on infinite adventures.\nIn just two years, we achieved unicorn status and were honored as Google Play's AI App of the Year-a testament to our innovative technology and visionary approach.\nJoin us and be a part of establishing this new entertainment paradigm while shaping the future of Consumer AI!\nAt Character, we value diversity and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. As an equal opportunity employer, we firmly uphold a non-discrimination policy based on race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability. 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