Research Program Associate, AI Safety

The Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative (CBAI) is a nonprofit research organization working to advance research and education directed towards ensuring that society navigates a safe and beneficial transition to advanced AI systems. Our work takes the form of producing original research efforts and accelerating AI safety research through fellowship programs.

Our inaugural summer fellowship cohort has already published a spotlight paper at the Mechanistic Interpretability Workshop at NeurIPS, accepted papers at ICLR, and some of our fellows have joined Goodfire and Redwood Research. After a successful 2025 launch, we're rapidly scaling in 2026. We will host multiple fellowship cycles (Fall, Spring, and Summer), double the fellowship cohort, and quadruple our team.

Refer us candidates, and receive $5,000 if we hire them.

You'll work closely with our Research Managers, mentors, and program leadership to design and continuously improve the structures that enable fellows to do their best research. This is a program-building role: you'll develop the systems and frameworks that govern how fellows are matched with mentors, how research goals are scoped and tracked, how progress both for the fellows and the program is assessed, and how fellows get unblocked when they need it. You won't be managing fellows day-to-day, but you'll be shaping the environment in which that relationship thrives.

• Design and iterate on the systems, ranging from improving CBAI's fellow selection process to program deliverables

• Identify high-potential outreach channels and methods and own the outreach campaign for future iterations

• Develop structured program evaluation frameworks to assess fellow progress and program effectiveness across cohorts

• Identify and implement structural improvements between fellowship cycles, drawing on fellow, mentor, and research manager feedback

• Support the design and execution of fellowship events, including speaker series and poster days, in coordination with program leadership

• Design and manage the mentor onboarding experience, ensuring mentors have clear expectations, the right resources, and a smooth entry into the fellowship

• Develop feedback mechanisms that surface issues early and create strong communication loops between fellows, mentors, and program leadership

• Support research managers in navigating complex fellow or mentor situations that require program-level input

• Design supplementary programming that strengthens the fellowship's intellectual environment (e.g., reading groups, lightning talk series, workshop sessions, and similar structures that complement fellows' primary research work)

We expect you to be characterized by most of the qualities listed below.

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  5% 403(b) match contribution

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  Comprehensive health insurance

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  Generous PTO policy

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  Meals provided during weekdays

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  Employer-paid commuter benefits

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  Reimbursement for work-related technology and/or home office expenses

Location: This position is primarily based in Cambridge, MA. While we expect you to spend most of your time working in-person from our Harvard Square office (particularly during active fellowship cycles), we can offer some hybrid flexibility between fellowship cohorts for candidates with specific circumstances. In those cases, we can give you access to AI safety co-working spaces in Berkeley and NYC.

Start date: May 2026

We use a multi-stage process to find the right fit:

1. Application Review: We review applications on a rolling basis and invite strong candidates to phone screens. We take the hiring process seriously, and this means your application will be reviewed in detail by a CBAI employee.

2. Initial Phone Screen (15 minutes): A conversation with the team manager to discuss your background, understand your interest in research program management and AI safety, and answer your initial questions about the role.

3. Paid Test Task: Strong candidates from the phone screen will receive a paid test task that mirrors actual program associate responsibilities — such as designing a program component, developing an evaluation framework, proposing a structural improvement to an existing fellowship element, or drafting an outreach campaign. You'll have a fixed amount of time to complete this.

4. Interview: Top candidates from the test task will be invited for an interview, including some of the following topics:

   1. Discussion of your test task submission

   2. Case study of fellowship program scenarios

   3. Conversation with CBAI team members and potentially a mentor

   4. Deep dive into your approach to program design and building research environments

5. Reference Checks: For our top finalists, we'll conduct reference checks and a final conversation to ensure mutual fit. We'll discuss logistics, answer remaining questions, and clarify expectations.

6. Offer: Selected candidates will receive an offer and detailed onboarding information.

CBAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law.

In acknowledgement of the research that suggests that women, gender minorities, and other marginalized groups may be less likely to apply for roles where they don’t meet every criterion, we especially encourage people in these categories to apply.

We may use AI to assist in the initial screening of applications, including to detect whether candidates have used AI models in drafting their application. Decisions are always made by a human on our team.