Program Director, Formal Methods

OpenAI Foundation•San Francisco, CA

3d•$300,000 - $370,000

About The Position

AI is rapidly evolving the cyber resilience threat landscape. More advanced AI models are accelerating vulnerability discovery and exploit development, while organizations increasingly rely on AI systems that can be unreliable and difficult to validate. This creates an assurance gap, with more software, more capable attackers, and less time for defenders. Formal methods offer a promising solution by enabling the creation of verified defensive systems, with trust grounded in independently verifiable evidence. This role aims to make formal methods a central pillar of the Foundation’s cyber resilience program, driving R&D strategy, coordinating an ecosystem, and funding leading research to deployment. This is a senior, full-time leadership position with significant autonomy and short timelines. The successful candidate will need to form strategic views, make high-conviction investments, recruit top talent, and secure funding for initiatives within months. The role involves setting R&D strategy, managing a portfolio of grants and contracts, launching technical sprints, and fostering collaboration across various stakeholders.

Requirements

Deep expertise in formal methods, equivalent to 5-10+ years of experience in the field.
Broad judgment about approaches, tools, institutions, and people across the formal methods ecosystem.
Experience applying formal methods to consequential real-world systems and understanding the gap between proof and deployment.
Experience leading a significant technical R&D program, organization, or cross-institutional effort from an ambiguous mandate to concrete results.
A strong network and trusted relationships across the formal-methods community.
Understanding of how rapidly improving AI capabilities are changing offensive cyber operations and defensive engineering, and ability to identify remaining bottlenecks.
High-agency operator who makes sound decisions under uncertainty, moves with urgency, recruits excellent people, and communicates ambitious ideas without overselling.

Nice To Haves

Experience with industrial formal verification, high-assurance software, compilers, programming languages, systems security, cryptographic verification, or verified hardware.
Experience running an ARPA-style program, technical startup, open-source or standards effort, or a substantial portfolio of grants, contracts, or investments.

Responsibilities

Set and own a focused formal methods R&D strategy for cyber resilience, identifying high-leverage bottlenecks and advising leadership.
Build and execute a high-conviction portfolio of grants and contracts, sourcing exceptional people and programs.
Launch rapid technical sprints and ambitious demonstrations on consequential systems, with clear milestones for scaling, changing, or stopping work.
Knit together the ecosystem of formal-methods researchers, companies, AI labs, critical-infrastructure operators, government, standards bodies, and funders.
Build and lead a small, exceptional team of technical experts and program builders, complemented by advisors, contractors, and AI-native engineering capacity.