Principal Engineer (London)

You will own all of AIWI's technology: architecture, implementation, deployment, security, and maintenance. Delivery will be hands-on and you will manage a budget for executing items defined on your roadmap.

You will work closely with the founders and our Head of Security, and translate requirements from our operations, research, and advocacy teams into working systems. The work is demanding, sensitive, and consequential; conviction in our mission is essential.

Internal tooling. We operate in a highly sensitive environment. Many commercial SaaS products, and hosted AI models in particular, do not meet our security and data sovereignty requirements. You will build and operate our self-hosted, primarily OSS stack end to end: A secure CRM tailored to our needs, state-of-the-art self-hosted AI models and agent systems integrated into knowledge management, call recording, communication tooling, other OSS software we self host, and in-house development of news tracking solutions. If you are excited about designing architecture that allows air-gapping and decentralized access, this role is for you.

External-facing technology. You take offerings from prototype to production end-to-end: Zero-knowledge proof solutions for anonymous coordination, interactive scenario simulators, or automated legislation trackers. Projects can span months or require rapid 3-day delivery. You will also oversee the tech-side of our website. Your solutions will directly drive the impact and safety of AI whistleblowers.

This means you will frequently handle multiple projects simultaneously. You will be the first non-volunteer engineer working on AIWI dedicated technology. Across all areas, security is foundational. You will work closely here with our Head of Security.

GBP £70,000 - £90,000 commensurate with experience

Up to 9% on UEL pension contribution

25 days of annual leave plus public bank holidays

Paid parental leave

Professional development budget

A home office or equipment stipend for hybrid staff

Wellness budget

Paid for co-working space in London

Flexible scheduling; occasional out-of-hours work required

Work as part of an ambitious team committed to a high leverage intervention: A single whistleblower disclosure can move the world if handled well. We get up every morning to make it go well.

Work on a vast breadth of technological challenges and varying project sizes.

Ownership and responsibility from day 1.

Chance to define your personal career development.

Coaching by an AIWI board member and serial entrepreneur/CTO as well as close collaboration with an extremely experienced Head of Security.

AIWI is an independent non-profit launched in late 2024. We are ~4 team members today and are scaling to ~15 within the year, spread across the Bay Area, DC, and London. Joining now, you will significantly shape what the future of AI insider support looks like. We are funded until 2029.

Examples of our work to date:

Policy: We pushed for and shaped the EU AI Office's channel , the world's first AI whistleblowing channel. In the US, we support the federal AI Whistleblower Protection Act and have provided expert research input on implementing SB 53's incident reporting mechanisms through a research coalition, which we helped set up. Read our work in Tech Policy Press, the Institute for Law & AI, and Transformer, and see our AI Whistleblowing Law Best Practice Guide.

Insider education & support: Our online campaigns have reached thousands of company employees. We produce guides (available upon request), online courses, and help establish connections to our great partner attorneys and support (e.g. on legal advice and defense funding).

Advocacy: Anthropic published its whistleblowing policy and OpenAI strengthened theirs following our Publish Your Policies Campaign.

Network: We closely collaborate with the world's leading whistleblowing and AI organizations.

Our ambition is to ensure that each insider disclosure is maximally impactful and safe for the person making the disclosure. Joining us means dedicating yourself to achieving that goal with us.

Application review

Intro call (15 min): Jenny, Head of People & Ops

Get-to-know call (30 min): Max, Technology Advisor

Take-home task (2-3 hrs) + review call (45 min): Max

Final interview* (1 hour): competency-based, plus meet Karl (Founder) or Jenny

References

* Ideally, we would like to meet you in our London office.

We provide a reward of £4,000 for successful referrals upon completion of a 6-month employment period. Allocation will occur based on a successful applicant's attribution in the case of multiple referrers.

For London-based roles, we can sponsor UK visas.

AIWI is an equal opportunities employer, in line with the UK Equality Act 2010. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to a workplace free from discrimination.