Strategic Projects Lead, Red Team

About the role

The is responsible for owning and scaling day-to-day partnerships with frontier model developers worldwide. This role requires a technically curious individual who is comfortable working alongside researchers and translating complex adversarial findings into actionable commercial insights. The hire will operate with operational rigor to ensure that engagements are scoped, tracked, and executed against strict timelines. They will act as a credible subject matter expert, explaining vulnerability taxonomies and benchmark outcomes in language that resonates with technical buyers and executives. The position will partner closely with Enterprise and Public Sector teams to qualify opportunities where safety, red teaming, or LLM-based cyber security are embedded in the deal structure. This role contributes directly to shaping how leading labs train their models and how governments and enterprises deploy them responsibly.

Key facts

What you'll do

Own a portfolio of frontier-lab partnerships day-to-day, running customer conversations, scoping new engagements, and growing accounts from one-off projects into ongoing scope.

Act as a credible subject-matter expert in customer conversations, explaining adversarial methodology, vulnerability taxonomies, benchmark findings, and what they imply commercially to technical and executive audiences.

Partner with Enterprise and Public Sector account teams to qualify and close opportunities where safety, red teaming, or LLM-based cyber security are part of the deal.

Coordinate delivery with research and operations leads to ensure scope, capacity, and timelines line up before commitments are made, and unblock the team as engagements progress.

Contribute to public benchmark launches by helping shape the framing, rollout, and narrative presented to customers and the broader field.

Feed signal back into the product and research roadmap, surfacing customer demands, breaking patterns, and recommendations for what should be built next.

Manage multiple concurrent workstreams while maintaining rigorous documentation of assumptions, decisions, and dependencies across engagements.

Translate evolving customer requirements into clear briefs for internal research and delivery teams to ensure alignment on objectives and success criteria.

Support the development of internal tools and playbooks that standardize red teaming practices across client programs.

Represent Scale's Red Team and Safety function in external forums, contributing to discussions that shape industry standards and best practices.

Maintain up-to-date knowledge on adversarial techniques, model capabilities, and regulatory developments relevant to AI safety and security.

Collaborate with go-to-market teams to create case studies, reference designs, and sales materials that highlight the impact of adversarial testing.

Provide weekly operational updates to stakeholders, highlighting risks, dependencies, and mitigation strategies for active programs.

Champion a bias toward action while balancing speed with the need for methodological rigor in high-stakes evaluations.

Act as an escalation point for complex client scenarios, coordinating cross-functional responses when technical, legal, or policy constraints arise.

Requirements

Candidates must demonstrate working fluency in model behavior, adversarial ML, and AI safety, enough to hold a substantive conversation with researchers and ML engineers.

Experience managing technical accounts or partnerships is required, ideally with frontier AI labs, large enterprises, or federal agencies.

A genuine interest in AI safety must be evidenced through prior work, writing, or research that aligns with the mission of rigorous evaluation.

Strong written and verbal communication skills are mandatory, with the ability to translate between research and commercial audiences without losing technical precision.

Operational rigor is essential; you must scope carefully, track commitments, and keep complex engagements moving on schedule.

Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward action are required traits given the fast-paced and evolving nature of adversarial work.

Candidates must be able to relocate to either San Francisco, CA or New York, NY as these are the primary locations for team collaboration.

This role demands the ability to manage sensitive information with discretion and adhere to client confidentiality agreements at all times.

Willingness to participate in on-call rotations for critical engagements that require rapid response during business and non-business hours is mandatory.

Nice to have

2+ years of relevant experience in partnerships, business development, or technical account management.

Hands-on red teaming, penetration testing, or adversarial ML experience in a professional or research setting.

Background at a frontier AI lab, AI policy organization, or national security agency.

Experience contributing to public benchmarks, evaluations, or research publications in AI safety or security domains.

An advanced degree in a relevant technical field such as computer science, cybersecurity, or artificial intelligence.

Practical notes

This role is full-time and based in either San Francisco, CA or New York, NY.

Relocation to one of the two primary office locations is required.

Travel may be required within North America for client visits, workshops, or collaborative evaluations with partner organizations.

Visa sponsorship may be considered for highly qualified candidates depending on location and role requirements.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled, so early submission is encouraged.