Cyber Security Engineer - Cyber & Autonomous Systems Team

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. The 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 cybersecurity experts 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 Evaluation Design & Development (60%) Design cyber ranges and CTF-style challenges for automatically grading AI system performance on cybersecurity tasks Build agentic scaffolding to evaluate frontier models, equipping them with tools such as network packet capture utilities, penetration testing frameworks, and reverse engineering/disassembly tools Design metrics and interpret results of cyber capability evaluations Infrastructure engineering (30%) Work alongside other engineers to ensure evaluation environments are robust and scalable Research & Communication (10%) Write reports, research papers and blog posts to share findings with stakeholders Keep up-to-date with related research taking place in other organisations Contribute to AISI's broader understanding of AI cyber risks Example projects Onboard and integrate new cyber ranges into our evaluation pipeline Conduct agent research to improve the cyber capabilities of our agents Improve grading and scoring methodologies for automated evaluation tasks Integrate defensive telemetry and simulated users into ranges to increase their realism Collaborate with government partners on joint research publications Impact Your work will directly shape the UK government's understanding of AI cyber capabilities, inform safety standards fo