Interested in this AI/ML Engineer role at The Jed Foundation?
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Description
The Jed Foundation (“JED”) is a nonprofit organization that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for teens and young adults. By equipping individuals, families, schools, and communities with the skills, knowledge, and support to promote mental well-being, JED is committed to ensuring that all young people have the resources they need to thrive. Position Overview The Jed Foundation (JED) is seeking a AI Safety & Wellbeing to advance JED’s growing work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, emerging technology, mental health, and suicide prevention. AI is rapidly changing how people learn, connect, create, seek information and support, form relationships, and navigate the world around them. JED’s work in this area spans advising technology companies; AI safety, evaluation, and benchmarking collaborations; partnerships with research and public-interest organizations; public thought leadership and guidance; and efforts to understand and shape both the risks and potential benefits of emerging technologies. Reporting to the SVP, Youth Strategies & Chief Engagement Officer, the Director will advance key areas of work focused on emerging AI technologies and their implications for mental health and suicide prevention, AI safety and evaluation, technology advising, and the development of JED positions, frameworks, and guidance. The successful candidate will bring meaningful existing expertise in AI technology and safety or evaluation, along with experience applying technology, safety, research, or evaluation approaches in mental health, healthcare, public health, child and adolescent wellbeing or safety, or another high-stakes human context. The role requires understanding of mental health and suicide prevention to work effectively with JED’s experts and partners, alongside the technical fluency to engage credibly with AI researchers, safety and evaluation teams, engineers, and product leaders.
Candidates in Bay area, Boston, and NYC encouraged to apply!
Key Responsibilities
- Maintain a sophisticated understanding of developments in AI technology and assess their implications for mental health and suicide prevention, including emerging forms of human-AI interaction such as conversational and relational AI, multimodal systems, agents, memory and personalization, ambient and wearable technologies, and embodied AI.
- Advance JED’s work in AI safety, evaluation, benchmarking, standards, and related field-building efforts, working with technology, research, mental-health, suicide-prevention, and public-interest partners to bring relevant priorities into evaluation frameworks, scenarios, constructs, measures, and other approaches.
- Apply knowledge of model and system behavior, safety evaluations, red-teaming, safeguards and mitigations, failure modes, and evaluation methodology to identify where current approaches are strong and where important gaps remain.
- Advance approaches that consider not only acute safety failures but broader questions involving relationships and dependency, connection and belonging, agency, coping, help-seeking, protective factors, developmental differences, and beneficial uses of AI.
- Manage substantive technology-company advising work, assessing AI products, features, and safety approaches and developing actionable recommendations related to model and product behavior, safety, evaluation, developmental appropriateness, help-seeking and crisis pathways, relational dynamics, and responsible deployment.
- Develop JED POVs, frameworks, principles, recommendations, and guidance on AI and emerging technology, drawing on technical and research developments, expert consultation, JED expertise, and learning across external engagements.
- Identify emerging issues, evidence gaps, and opportunities that warrant JED engagement through advising, guidance, partnerships, evaluation, field-building, or other strategic action.
- Build and manage substantive relationships across technology companies, AI safety and evaluation organizations, academic and independent research institutions, public-interest organizations, philanthropy, and mental-health and suicide-prevention organizations.
- Collaborate with JED’s Knowledge & Advising, Policy, Programs, MarComms, and other teams to bring relevant expertise into the work and connect insights from AI partnerships and advising to JED’s broader efforts.
- Represent JED in appropriate collaborations, working groups, expert processes, convenings, and external forums, and contribute to the development of new initiatives, partnerships, proposals, and funding opportunities.
Skills Knowledge and Expertise
Required* Approximately 7+ years of relevant professional experience, including substantial work in AI, AI safety, responsible AI, AI evaluation, human-AI interaction, or a closely related field. Exceptional candidates with a different career trajectory but equivalent depth of experience will be considered.
- Strong working knowledge of contemporary AI technologies, including generative AI, large language models, multimodal systems, conversational AI, agents, memory/personalization, and emerging human-AI interfaces.
- Demonstrated knowledge of AI safety and evaluation, including model and system behavior, evaluation and benchmarking, red-teaming, failure modes, safeguards and mitigations, and the strengths and limitations of current approaches.
- Experience applying technology, safety, evaluation, research, or related expertise in a high-stakes human domain such as mental health, suicide prevention, healthcare, public health, child and adolescent wellbeing or safety, child protection, online safety, violence prevention, or another closely related area.
- Working knowledge of mental health, suicide prevention, behavioral health, public health, or an adjacent field sufficient to engage meaningfully with domain experts and understand the implications of AI systems for people experiencing distress or vulnerability.
- Technical fluency sufficient to engage credibly and independently with AI researchers, engineers, evaluation and safety teams, and product teams. This role does not require the candidate to be an ML engineer.
- Demonstrated ability to connect technical developments to their implications for human behavior, safety, wellbeing, products, institutions, or society.
- Excellent analytical, synthesis, writing, and communication skills, with experience developing frameworks, strategy, recommendations, guidance, or thought leadership.
- Strong judgment and comfort working across technical and nontechnical disciplines in an area where technology, evidence, practice, and regulation are evolving rapidly.
- Experience advancing complex work involving multiple internal and external stakeholders, with strong relationship-building and collaboration skills.
Strongly Preferred* Direct experience in mental health, suicide prevention, behavioral health, digital mental health, or a closely related field.
- Experience focused on children, adolescents, families, development, or populations experiencing heightened vulnerability.
- Experience working directly with technology-company product, safety, evaluation, or research teams.
- Experience developing or applying benchmarks, evaluations, safety frameworks, standards, or red-teaming approaches.
- Experience translating technical research for public-interest, product, policy, practitioner, or other nontechnical audiences.
An advanced degree in computer science, HCI, information science, behavioral or social science, public health, or another relevant discipline may be valuable but is not required.
About The Jed Foundation
The Jed Foundation (JED) is a nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults, giving them the skills and support they need to thrive today…and tomorrow.
Why Join the JED Team?
- Be a Lifesaver: Join a team directly responsible for protecting the emotional health of millions of teens and young adults. Your work has a measurable impact on preventing suicide and substance misuse.
- Systemic Change: We don’t just provide resources; we transform how high schools and colleges approach mental health. You’ll be part of a movement building lasting, nationwide support systems.
- Culture of Compassion: We practice what we preach. At JED, we value a supportive, inclusive environment where mental health is prioritized and stigma is non-existent.
- Empower the Future: Help us equip the next generation with the resilience and skills they need to navigate adulthood and fulfill their potential.
Pay Ranges:
The salary range listed on this posting reflects compensation for the New York City market, where JED is headquartered. Please note that actual salary offers are determined by a combination of the following factors:* Geographic Location: Compensation is adjusted based on the cost of living in your specific region. Candidates in areas with a lower cost of living than NYC will see a localized, proportionally lower salary range.
- Experience & Qualifications: Your relevant professional background and skill set.
Actual salaries will not exceed the posted or localized pay ranges.
Location/Travel Information:
Roles at JED are primarily hybrid and based out of the New York City Tri‑State Area, which supports all of JED’s core services and functions. For positions supporting JED’s Policy & Advocacy team, the location is based in the Washington, D.C. area.
Certain positions may have additional or specific location requirements as determined by organizational needs. Location requirements for each role are specified on the top right of this job opening page — please pay particular attention when applying. Also note that JED does not cover permanent relocation costs at this time.
In‑person attendance is required for periodic retreats or business meetings at JED’s central office in NYC or other locations as designated by JED leadership. Additional travel may be required based on role responsibilities, team priorities, or organizational projects.
Work Authorization
All applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. JED does not provide employment visa sponsorship at this time.
Physical Requirements:
- Prolonged periods of sitting and working on a computer, including typing, viewing screens, and engaging in virtual meetings.
- Frequent phone, email, and video conferencing communication require clear speech, active listening, and visual acuity.
- Occasional standing, walking, and lifting up to 25 pounds for conference booth setup, promotional materials, or event-related tasks.
- Flexibility to adjust to different work environments, including home offices, shared workspaces, and on-site event locations.
General Benefits:
At JED, you’ll join a team of compassionate professionals committed to protecting youth mental health. Our mission-driven culture encourages collaboration, innovation, and a shared sense of purpose. Join us to make a meaningful impact in the lives of young people across the country.
Employees who are eligible for benefits may participate in JED’s equity program and have access to a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, retirement, mental health support, and more.
For our benefits-eligible employees (such as full-time staff), we also offer a generous paid time off policy, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and a 401(k) plan with employer matching. Temporary staff and interns may be eligible for limited benefits.
These benefits apply to all benefits-eligible permanent staff. Eligibility may vary based on role, employment status, and location. Temporary employees and interns are eligible for limited benefits, which will be communicated during the hiring or onboarding process.
At JED, we’re committed to creating an environment where our team can thrive. From generous time off to comprehensive health and financial benefits, we’ve got you covered.
- Vacation – ~15 days per year to rest, recharge, and reset (increases to 20 days after 4 years)
- Holidays – 10 paid holidays throughout the year
- Floating Holiday – 1 personal day to use however you'd like
- Birthday Day Off – Take your birthday off to celebrate YOU!
- Winter Break (No FOMO Week) – 5-day, all-team holiday closure at the end of each calendar year
- Personal Leave (Life Leave) – 3 days annually to take care of life—errands, appointments, or personal time
- Sick Leave – 6 days annually for your health or to care for a sick loved one
We follow all applicable state and federal leave guidelines, including the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and state-specific family and medical leave programs (e.g., NYS Paid Family Leave). Where no state plan exists, we use NYS PFML as a baseline. Please note: Eligibility or waiting periods may apply depending on the type of leave and your location. We will help you navigate your options should a leave need arise.
- Bereavement Leave – 5 days of paid leave for the loss of an immediate family member
- Jury Duty – Paid time off to fulfill your civic responsibility
- Transit Benefits – Use pre-tax dollars for eligible commuting costs
- Flexible Spending Account (FSA) – Pay for qualifying out-of-pocket healthcare or dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars
- Healthcare Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA): + Mental Health HRA – $1,500/year for all benefits-eligible staff, with additional funds for those covering dependents + Health HRA – Available for employees enrolled in JED’s medical plan + Dental HRA – Available for employees enrolled in JED’s dental plan
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- Teladoc Virtual Health – 24/7 access to doctors and mental health professionals, at no cost to you
- 401(k) Safe Harbor Plan + Start contributing on Day 1 + Employer Match (after 6 months):
- 100% match on the first 3% of compensation
- 50% match on the next 2%
We’re building a mission-driven team—and that starts by investing in the people behind the mission.
Reasonable Accommodations Statement We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible hiring process for all candidates. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, please let us know by responding to the confirmation emails you receive from us when you apply or schedule an interview. We will work with you to meet your needs in accordance with applicable laws.
Equal Employment Opportunity ("EEO") Statement
JED is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace that values collaboration and creativity. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other protected characteristic in accordance with applicable state, federal, and local laws. We welcome and encourage individuals from all backgrounds to apply and contribute to our mission of protecting emotional health and preventing suicide.
Salary Context
This $120K-$160K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $178K across 1623 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 9,079 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 76% of the market. At The Jed Foundation, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills in Demand for This Role
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $211,950 based on 13,048 positions with disclosed compensation. Director-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $272,300. This role's midpoint ($140K) sits 34% below the category median. Disclosed range: $120K to $160K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($256,000) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $111,000; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $229,300; Director: $272,300; VP: $235,830.
The Jed Foundation AI Hiring
The Jed Foundation has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Based in US. Compensation range: $160K - $160K.
Location Context
AI roles in Austin pay a median of $209,100 across 306 tracked positions.
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 9,079 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 106 entry-level, 4,384 mid-level, 3,343 senior, and 1,246 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (531 positions). The remaining 8,478 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($256,000 median, 66 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 457 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 55 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 9,079 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (6,862), AI Product Manager (453), AI Software Engineer (451). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (106) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,384) and senior (3,343) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,246 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (531 positions), with 8,478 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,000. Top-quartile roles start at $263,911, and the 90th percentile reaches $318,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $256,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,649 postings), Aws (898 postings), Azure (723 postings), Rag (671 postings), Gcp (536 postings), Pytorch (434 postings), Claude (410 postings), Kubernetes (406 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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