Applied Risk Standards Specialist
San Francisco · Washington, DC · Full-time · Hybrid · Posted Sep 23, 2026
At a glance
- Employment
- Full-time
- Workplace
- Hybrid
- Location
- San Francisco · Washington, DC
About OpenAI
- OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
- We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
- For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.
- Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
- To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
- We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.
About the role
- OpenAI is looking for an Applied Risk Standards Specialist to lead standards work for applied risk in applications, including mental health, youth safety, age assurance, functional efficacy, reliability, and privacy-related risks.
- You will help turn internal research, safety policies, and evaluation methods into technically sound, measurable, and adaptable standards that build public trust and support responsible deployment.
- This role sits within our AI standards and global assurance function in Global Affairs, working closely with Safety Systems, Research, Product, Model Policy, Legal, and third-party evaluators.
Responsibilities
- Lead the development of applied AI risk standards, defining and advancing standards for mental health, youth safety, age assurance, efficacy, reliability, and privacy-related risks.
- Work with technical owners to turn research, internal policies, and evaluation methods into credible test methods, assessment criteria, and standards grounded in real system behavior.
- Bring emerging requirements into internal planning and work with responsible teams to clarify their implications for evaluations, controls, and assurance for products.
- Work with technical and GRC partners on assessor competence, independence, conflicts of interest, evidence access, reporting, and the distinction between management-system audits and technical evaluations.
- Contribute drafting, representation, and coordination on frontier risk-management and independent-assessment standards.
- Lead assigned standards-body workstreams, negotiate proposals, and coordinate internal input, contributing to relevant ISO/IEC, INCITS, NIST consortium, and cross-industry work.
- Maintain clear approvals, negotiating positions, contribution records, and implementation handoffs so that external commitments remain connected to technical owners and available capacity.
Requirements
- Technical depth in evaluation science, AI evaluations and red teaming, AI safety, or trust and safety, combined with demonstrated ability to translate that expertise into credible standards or assessment methods.
- Have authored or materially shaped standards, evaluation criteria, control frameworks, or normative technical contributions.
- Ability to translate a broad safety objective into a clear requirement and explain what evidence would demonstrate that it has been met.
- Understand the differences among organizational risk-management processes, model and system evaluations, mitigation testing, and broader assurance claims.
- Ability to evaluate sensitive, context-dependent outcomes, including uncertainty and variation across users and use cases.
- Understand how assessor competence, independence, incentives, and access affect the credibility of an assessment.
- Ability to build consensus without sacrificing technical rigor, and know when to compromise, challenge a proposal, or escalate a decision.
- Earn trust with technical teams while communicating clearly with lawyers, executives, policymakers, and external standards participants.
- Write precisely, exercise discretion, and independently move a defined workstream from initial proposal through review, negotiation, and handoff.
.jpg){kind=logo}