Horizon Scanner (Contractor), Coordinated Research Programs

Four (4)-month horizon scanning contractor engagement, with potential extension and promotion to Technical Director

TL;DR Principles of Intelligence (PrincInt) is hiring a small cohort of researchers to conduct sensemaking and horizon scanning on interdisciplinary approaches to scalable alignment and related areas during the pilot phase of four (4) new Coordinated Research Programs (CRPs).

Over a paid ~four (4)-month engagement, you will build a deep and complete understanding of the bets the field is making in one of our new research areas, lay out a roadmap for how the technical work should be done, and find the expertise communities outside AI safety that should be working on it.

If successful in this role, you may be offered an extension and promotion to Technical Director of the Coordinated Research Program you helped scope. As Technical Director, you would lead your own research team and research agenda within PrincInt and steward research groups incubated through the program.

Position Details

Location: Remote, with no location requirement.

Travel: You’ll be expected to attend at least one convening or horizon-scanning event in person during the engagement. Travel and accommodation are covered.

Type: ~Four (4)-month engagement. Contractor. Full-time preferred; part-time considered for strong candidates with existing academic or research work.

Start date: Negotiable, with a strong preference for starting as soon as possible. For a sense of timing, an engagement that begins in mid to late November 2026 would run until around mid to late March 2027.

Compensation: $25,000–$38,000 for ~four (4) months, depending on seniority and cost of living in your location, plus travel costs. Exceptional candidates may earn more.

Extension and promotion: The contract may be extended depending on fit for both sides, with potential promotion to Technical Director of the Coordinated Research Program you helped scope. Technical Director salaries sit above the rate for this engagement.

Reporting line/collaborators: Reports to the Executive Director, Research, Lucas Teixeira. You’ll work alongside Lauren Greenspan (Technical Director), Cecilia Wood (Technical Director, Mechanism Design), and Daniel Herrmann (Horizon Scanner, Philosophy).

Application deadline: Please submit the application form by 5 November 2026. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Earlier applications have an advantage.

Core Responsibilities

Sensemaking and opportunity mapping. You will map existing work in your program area, locating its technical bottlenecks and assessing which problems are neglected and tractable, which, in turn, allows us to define the research outputs that would constitute progress.

Horizon scanning and network identification. You will identify the researchers, groups, and adjacent fields relevant to the program and assess what each can contribute, thus determining where we should collaborate, whom we should recruit, and where targeted support is needed.

Agenda curation and technical translation. You will state the alignment problem in terms that researchers from other disciplines can work with, clarifying the definitions, assumptions, threat models, and success criteria involved, as well as their bearing on the AI systems being built today.

Engaging the network. You will convene prospective participants, publish a roadmap or request for proposals where appropriate, and support researchers in developing their proposals, agreeing with them in advance on the technical scope of the work and on how we will evaluate it.

What you’ll produce Over four months, we expect some subset of the following, scoped with us at the start: Gap Map: Broad outline of the problem space and what isn’t being worked on. Rosetta Stone: Outlines the methodologies, assumptions, domains of application, current limitations and future trajectories. Literature Review: Contextualize broad open questions within a body of literature. Frontier Map: What is the next set of papers (e.g. the next 12 papers that should be produced). Implementation Sketch: What should the final technology look like, and how do all the pieces fit together (i.e. a Safety Case Sketch). Plus we also expect you to run an event, independently or with us, and to compile a list of the people and groups worth funding, along with your assessment of each.

If the engagement goes well: Technical Director As Technical Director, you would lead your own internal research team as part of a research division within PrincInt, and continue to liaise with the research groups incubated through the program. Alongside this, the role also involves: - Overseeing the program’s research agenda and keeping the shared roadmap current - Finding researchers who can make progress and helping them shape their proposals - Reviewing proposals and advising on how we allocate the program’s block funding - Running the program’s events, from quarterly workshops to an annual agenda-setting retreat - Translating between the source disciplines and AI safety research - Tracking progress against technical milestones - Representing the program to funders and downstream stakeholders

Requirements We care most about whether you can build a real map of a problem space, and then get the right people to care about it. We expect strong candidates to have many of the following: - People who have opinionated takes on AI Safety (exposure and publications in the area) - Connections outside of the main AIS sphere - High scholarship (knows the literature, keeps up with new papers, and can map who develops methods, who applies them, and how research groups connect). - Excited about hosting events and making connections - Able to look beyond their own research program, with a view of and opinions on the field as a whole - Have done PhD-level research (can be outside of academia)

Benefits and Compensation Compensation for the ~four (4)-month engagement is $25,000–$38,000, depending on prior experience and location, plus travel costs. We cover travel and accommodation for events on top of that, and we can support short-stay visa arrangements where required. Flexible working hours: Flexible working hours with an emphasis on outcomes and reliable coordination with teammates. High ownership & autonomy: A high-trust environment where you’ll own your work end-to-end, with meaningful responsibility and room to improve systems. Team meetups: We get together in person 2–4 times a year for focused work time, great conversations, and the kind of momentum you only get when the whole team is in the same room. On conversion to Technical Director: 4 weeks of collective holiday per year plus additional personal time off, and the rest of our core team benefits.