AI Research Engineer

The Opportunity

The SandboxAQ AI team is looking for an AI Engineer to help us build the future of agentic collaboration, trust and ROI. Our goal is to make agents work well on their own, in teams, and with humans. This includes the following aspects:

• Security: Discovery of agents, evaluation, red teaming, monitoring, guardrails, etc.
• Quality: Measuring ROI of agents and suggesting improvements
• Collaboration: Bringing humans and agents together into one place with shared context

A successful candidate thrives at the intersection of AI and software engineering. You deeply understand how models and agents work, how they can fail, how they can be protected and improved. You have hands-on experience with agents in production, know what works and what doesn’t, know the latest trends and you’re opinionated about the future. You know what you don’t know and enjoy learning to close those gaps. You’ll turn your insights and innovation into real world features baked into our platform - shipping code to production.

This is a hands-on role where you’ll break things, fix them and then harden them for good. At the same time, you’ll have freedom to explore, collaborate, publish, and deploy, shaping the field of agentic collaboration and trust from all angles.

We’re looking for somebody with the curiosity of a researcher, the rigor of an engineer, and the creativity of a hacker. You will be part of a diverse team consisting of ML experts, security experts, mathematicians, and software engineers, each playing a key role in efficient and effective enablement of the cutting-edge technologies being developed at SandboxAQ.

Key Responsibilities

• Create new agentic capabilities - frameworks for monitoring, guardrailing, and evaluating them, and to make them work together more effectively.
• Perform classical ML tasks - exploratory data analysis, feature engineering and fine-tuning models using the latest frameworks.
• Work closely with Product and Research to translate AI research into applicable features and software engineering projects.
• Rapidly iterate on prototypes and features based on feedback and evolving product needs.
• Contribute production ready code, working across engineering to deliver scalable software.
• Stay on the edge of the latest agentic developments and explore new opportunities.

Essential Skills & Experience

• MSc in Computer Science or related field with exposure to AI/ML.
• Deep expertise in AI/ML, software engineering, or AI security.
• Strong programming skills in Python, and relevant ML and/or agentic frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally and collaboratively with a high degree of end-to-end ownership, delivering real world outcomes.
• Ability to pick up other programming languages and technologies as required to ship scalable and reliable software.

Highly Desired Skills & Experience

• PhD in Computer Science or related field with focus on AI/ML or similar.
• Hands-on experience with at least one of the following: agent orchestration, agent harnesses, agent teams, jailbreaking / prompt injection, red teaming, data poisoning or evasion attacks, secure model deployment or sandboxing, detection and monitoring for AI misuse.
• Experience contributing to open source projects.
• Experience in a fast-paced startup environment.
• Experience in cybersecurity is a plus, but not essential.

Why Join Us?

We offer competitive compensation, a comprehensive benefits package, and opportunities for professional growth.

• Compensation: Competitive base salary, performance-based incentives or bonuses (where applicable), and equity participation.
• Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents with generous employer premium contributions, retirement savings with company matching, paid parental leave, and inclusive family-building benefits.
• Work-Life Balance: Flexible paid time off, company-wide seasonal breaks, and support for flexible work arrangements that enable sustainable performance.
• Career Development: Opportunities for continuous learning and growth through on-the-job development, cross-functional collaboration, and access to internal learning and development programs.

SandboxAQ Welcomes All

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status.