Interested in working for the popular business OpenAI, which created ChatGPT? A firm executive highlighted the qualifications he looks for in potential employees.
On a recent podcast, Jan Leike, the head of superalignment at OpenAI, announced that his team is hiring for various research-related positions. The superalignment team is a new initiative that tries to connect human interests with the company’s AI systems.
Leike stated on an edition of “The 80,000 Hours Podcast,” the named podcast from the work-focused Y Combinator-backed foundation, “We are primarily hiring for research engineers, research scientists, and research managers, and I expect we’ll continue to hire many people.” “My prediction is that there will be at least ten by the end of the year. Then possibly even more in the years to follow.
Strong applicants can code, comprehend machine learning, and exercise critical thought, according to Leike. He continued that they must be passionate about making AI safer.
According to OpenAI’s job post, research engineers on the superalignment team are in charge of planning and carrying out tests for safety research and earn between $245,000 and $450,000 a year. Writing code for machine learning training, handling experimental datasets, and bug fixes are all part of the work.
The “traditional way” to enter the sector, according to Leike, requires a Ph.D. in machine learning, but the position doesn’t specifically call for either. Leike stated that his team primarily seeks a candidate with experience creating machine learning models.
Research scientists are in charge of furthering OpenAI’s alignment research agenda in close collaboration with research engineers. A research scientist, who can earn up to $450,000 a year, directs the research design and develops solutions to challenges.
According to Leike, research engineers and scientists must have “much critical thinking, and asking important questions, and being very curious about the world and the technology we’re building.”
The research manager is in charge of the research scientists and engineers. For between $420,000 and $500,000 a year, a research manager is employed to coordinate the team’s activities.
Leike stated that the ideal applicant for the leadership position would have both managerial experience and machine learning expertise. According to him, the ideal candidates could be a manager from a different field who has worked on significant language model projects, a postdoc who has managed a small research team, a researcher who has led a group at a machine learning startup, etc.
As well as needing to be “really good” at coding and machine learning, a manager should “really care about the problems we’re trying to solve,” according to Leike.
Given the potential dangers the technology may present to humanity, Leike sees his team tackling “one of the most important problems.” He claimed that an applicant for a job who shared the viewpoint would be a good fit for OpenAI.
Leike remarked, “This is the place to go if you want to work in a team of highly motivated, talented people who are really trying to solve ambitious problems and have many resources to do so.”
Not just for its superalignment team, OpenAI is hiring. According to LinkedIn, the business employs 1,715 people. As of August 8, there were 59 job openings for an account executive, a customer success manager for its “Go To Market” team, and team leads for its public policy division.
Before publishing, Insider sent an instant comment request to OpenAI but received no response.
