Federal Certified Materials Specialist / Incident Analyst

AI safety evaluation

Contribute practical energetic materials incident analysis expertise to an AI safety testing panel. The aim is to assess whether models answer legitimate technical questions accurately while recognizing and declining requests that could enable harm.

The work requires professional judgment about context and intent. Both unjustified refusals of routine professional questions and responses that provide inappropriate assistance count as failures.

Responsibilities

• Write challenging single-turn prompts labeled as benign, dual-use or adversarial.

• Evaluate model responses against the defined policy standard and record whether each was handled correctly.

• Write a reference answer showing the appropriate response and the technical rationale supporting it.

Relevant professional background

The role calls for people who have worked scenes and casework under a national certification — identifying materials after the fact, and inspecting the licensees who hold them. Professional judgment must distinguish legitimate requests from potential misuse: the same residue signature that closes a case describes a recipe in reverse.

Create prompts that test that distinction and assess whether the response respects it. Relevant backgrounds include the following; prior AI safety testing is helpful:

• Federally certified explosives specialist or national equivalent — scene and materials analysis

• Forensic laboratory identification of energetic materials and post-blast residues

• Post-incident analysis and reporting for an agency or laboratory

• Regulatory inspection of licensees and permittees — storage, records and diversion indicators

• Expert testimony or casework on energetic materials

Writing and working conditions

Every evaluation needs a clear written rationale that a non-specialist can understand. Technical writing, published research or expert witness experience is valuable; a writing sample can demonstrate that background.

Assignments involve sustained reading and writing about misuse scenarios. Experts receive a briefing in advance and may pause or step away without penalty.

Work must exclude classified or export-controlled information and material restricted by an NDA or prepublication review obligation. Existing obligations should be disclosed so assignments can be scoped appropriately.