Software Engineer - Cyber & Autonomous Systems Team
AI Security Institute · London, UK ·
- Work mode
- Hybrid
- Category
- Software engineering
- Experience
- 5+ years
About the AI Security Institute
The AI Security Institute is the world's largest and best-funded team dedicated to understanding advanced AI risks and translating that knowledge into action. We’re in the heart of the UK government with direct lines to No. 10 (the Prime Minister's office), and we work with frontier developers and governments globally.
We’re here because governments are critical for advanced AI going well, and UK AISI is uniquely positioned to mobilise them. With our resources, unique agility and international influence, this is the best place to shape both AI development and government action.
The deadline for applying to this role is 11th October 2026, end of day, anywhere on Earth.
About the team
AI capabilities in cybersecurity and autonomy are advancing faster than at any point in history. Frontier models can now work through multi-step network intrusions, discover and exploit software vulnerabilities, and carry out long-horizon technical tasks with increasing independence. These are extraordinary tools for scientific and economic progress, but also have the potential for serious harm if misused or deployed without adequate oversight, as seen in the recent cybersecurity incidents.
Our Cyber & Autonomous Systems Team evaluates the capability of both frontier and open-weight AI models in cybersecurity, autonomy and AI R&D, ensuring the UK government and its partners have an accurate view of risks and capabilities. We use realistic cyber ranges and a large CTF suite for our evaluations, run pre-deployment testing of frontier models, and collaborate with our partners across UK government, frontier labs, and NCSC.
Role Description
We are looking for exceptional Software Engineers at all experience levels, from junior through to senior or staff, who want to work at the forefront of frontier AI security
In this role, you’ll work with cutting-edge technologies on research problems with real-world impact, and receive mentorship and coaching from your manager and the technical leads on your team.
Your day-to-day work might include building state-of-the-art evaluations (e.g., cyber ranges), running pre-deployment testing exercises (e.g., Claude Mythos Preview), validating novel model behaviours (e.g., models cheating in evaluations), and answering timely research questions (e.g., the capabilities of open-weight models). You would be working alongside engineers and researchers who care deeply about the impact of their work, take pride in their craft, and have a high level of autonomy.
If that sounds exciting to you, we'd love for you to apply!
Core Responsibilities
- Build evaluation infrastructure: develop systems and code that make cyber and autonomy evaluations possible at scale.
- Develop analysis tooling: turn raw results into insights, including LLM-as-a-judge and other analysis workflows.
- Lead testing exercises: identify key research questions, run evaluations to collect evidence, analyse results, and communicate findings and recommendations.
- Deliver engineering work: own technical projects and shared components from design through implementation, iteration, and maintenance.
- Write production-quality code: build scalable, robust, maintainable Python software with strong testing, documentation, and observability practices.
Example projects
- Onboard a cyber range: deploy a new cyber range on AISI’s evaluation infrastructure (for example, Proxmox) and verify it meets the internal Evaluation Quality Standard.
- Build an image pipeline: create a pipeline that converts infrastructure-as-code into AMIs ready for evaluation.
- Develop a more secure sandbox service: partner with Core Technology to improve AISI’s sandbox platform, representing CAST to ensure the service meets its evaluation requirements.
- Prepare data for publication: collect, validate, and organise evaluation data to support publication of research findings.
Impact
Your work will directly shape the UK government's understanding of AI cyber capabilities, inform safety standards for frontier AI systems, and contribute to the global effort to develop rigorous evaluation methodologies. The evaluations you build will help determine how advanced AI systems are assessed before deployment.
Who we're looking for
We're flexible on the exact profile and expect successful candidates will meet many (but not necessarily all) of the criteria below:
Essential
- Delivering and maintaining production-quality software
- Deep Python experience, with a clear view of what good Python looks like and broad familiarity with the wider ecosystem and tooling
- Designing and evolving software systems or technical architecture
- Strong interest in helping to improve the safety of AI systems
- Take ownership of ambiguous, technically hard problems and follow through
- Communicate clearly and raise engineering standards through feedback and mentoring
Desirable
- Cybersecurity or adversarial-security expertise
- Building, operating, or analysing AI evaluations
- Experience building, deploying, and operating production systems using DevOps practices
- Familiarity with AI misuse and loss-of-control threat models
Motivated candidates are encouraged to apply even if you don't meet all the above criteria.
What We Offer
Impact you couldn't have anywhere else
- Incredibly talented, mission-driven and supportive colleagues.
- Direct influence on how frontier AI is governed and deployed globally.
- Work with the Prime Minister’s AI Advisor and leading AI companies.
- Opportunity to shape the first & best-resourced public-interest research team focused on AI security.
Resources & access
- Pre-release access to multiple frontier models and ample compute.
- Extensive operational support so you can focus on research and ship quickly.
- Work with experts across national security, policy, AI research and adjacent sciences.
Growth & autonomy
- If you’re talented and driven, you’ll own important problems early.
- 5 days off and annual stipends for learning and development, and funding for conferences and external collaborations.
- Freedom to pursue research bets without product pressure.
- Opportunities to publish and collaborate externally.
Life & family*
- Modern central London office, or where applicable, option to work in similar government offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, Salford or Bristol.
- Hybrid working, flexibility for occasional remote work abroad and stipends for work-from-home equipment.
- At least 25 days’ annual leave, 8 public holidays, extra team-wide breaks and 3 days off for volunteering.
- Generous paid parental leave (36 weeks of UK statutory leave shared between parents + 3 extra paid weeks + option for additional unpaid time).
- On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.
- Discounts and benefits for cycling to work, donations and retail/gyms.
*These benefits apply to direct employees. Benefits may differ for individuals joining through other employment arrangements such as secondments.
Salary
Annual salary is benchmarked to role scope and relevant experience. Most offers land between £65,000 and £145,000 made up of a base salary plus a technical allowance (take-home salary = base + technical allowance). An additional 28.97% employer pension contribution is paid on the base salary.
This role sits outside of the DDaT pay framework given the scope of this role requires in depth technical expertise in frontier AI safety, robustness and advanced AI architectures.
The full range of salaries are available below:
- Level 3: £65,000–£75,000 (Base £40,850 + Technical Allowance £24,150–£34,150)
- Level 4: £85,000–£95,000 (Base £48,540 + Technical Allowance £36,460–£46,460)
- Level 5: £105,000–£115,000 (Base £63,165 + Technical Allowance £41,835–£51,835)
- Level 6: £125,000–£135,000 (Base £76,475 + Technical Allowance £48,525–£58,525)
- Level 7: £145,000 (Base £76,475 + Technical Allowance £68,525)
Additional Information
Use of AI in Applications
Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Use of AI tools in recruitment
We may use AI tools to help our hiring teams review applications, for example by summarising application materials and helping us prioritise applications against the published criteria. People make every decision. AI tools do not decide the outcome of any application. Every decision is made by a member of our hiring team, and we do not make solely automated decisions about candidates. We only use the information you provide in your application. We do not use AI tools to collect information about you from other sources, including the internet. These tools are approved for use within AISI and operate in our secure environment. We process this information in line with our wider recruitment retention policy. You can ask how AI was used in relation to your application, request a human review, or object to AI being used, by contacting the hiring manager. This will not affect how your application is assessed.
Internal Fraud Database
The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented. For more information please see - Internal Fraud Register.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check and get baseline personnel security standard (BPSS) clearance before they can be appointed. Additionally, there is a strong preference for eligibility for counter-terrorist check (CTC) clearance. Some roles may require higher levels of clearance, and we will state this by exception in the job advertisement. See our vetting charter here.Nationality requirements
We may be able to offer roles to applicant from any nationality or background. As such we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet the standard nationality requirements (opens in a new window).