Lead, Product Safety & Wellbeing at Flagship Pioneering

Cambridge, MA USAFull-timeArtificial IntelligencePosted about 1 month ago

About the Role

The Company  Iris Labs, Inc. is a privately held, early-stage company pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to transform how people navigate life’s challenges and wellbeing. We are creating a platform that empowers people to build a life they are proud of and fulfilled by. We bring together psychology, product, design, engineering, and machine learning to build digital experiences that are engaging, trustworthy, and genuinely helpful.    Iris Labs is backed by Flagship Pioneering, an innovation enterprise that conceives, creates, resources, and builds companies that invent breakthrough technologies that transform the world. Flagship has created over 100 groundbreaking companies since 2000, including Moderna.  The Role  We're looking for an experienced and creative leader to own and continually improve product performance. This person will lead on how we define and measure safety, and partner across disciplines to strengthen our evaluations, safety systems, and user experience. This role sits at the intersection of psychology, AI, product development, and applied research. Candidates should have a strong background in clinical science with the ability to lead projects and communicate effectively across teams to translate insights into actionable and meaningful improvements across AI tools and workflows. The role offers a unique opportunity to help drive the strategy of an early stage AI-focused company.  The ideal candidate is a self-starter who knows how to balance safety, quality, and rigor with speed and experimentation. They are passionate about creating user experiences that help people feel supported, understood, and empowered in their everyday lives. This dynamic role offers significant opportunities for impact and professional growth, helping shape how AI can responsibly support wellbeing at scale.  Key Responsibilities  <ul> <li>Serve as the subject matter expert on safety systems, owning the safety roadmap and continuously improving guardrails as the product evolves. </li> <li>Develop a deep, data-driven understanding of product performance across safety risks; identify strengths, limitations, failure modes, emerging risks, and opportunities for improvement. </li> <li>Develop and evolve safety frameworks, benchmarks, evaluation methodologies, rubrics, quality standards, and meaningful safety metrics. </li> <li>Lead human and automated evaluation programs, including annotation programs, annotator and AI judge training and calibration, and improvements to evaluation reliability and scalability. </li> <li>Conduct qualitative and quantitative reviews from both expert and user perspectives, translating findings into clear, actionable product recommendations. </li> <li>Partner with Engineering, ML, Product, and Data Science to improve risk detection, prompting strategies, response generation, routing and escalation logic, automated evaluation pipelines, and the overall user experience. </li> <li>Prototype and test new safety approaches, product features, and user experiences to improve safety and broader product quality. </li> <li>Own ongoing safety monitoring and assessment, including dashboards, key metrics, trend analysis, emerging risk identification, safety reviews, and refinement of safety protocols. </li> <li>Evolve and own safety and launch-readiness criteria for new features and capabilities, identifying risks and ensuring appropriate mitigations are in place. </li> </ul> Qualifications:  <ul> <li>Advanced training (PhD, PsyD, LCSW, or equivalent experience) in psychology, behavioral science, mental health, or a closely related field </li> <li>Deep expertise in psychological safety, crisis response, and risk assessment; strong judgment around conversations involving emotional distress, self-harm, suicide, abuse, or other sensitive situations </li> <li>Experience developing evaluation frameworks or quality assurance processes </li> <li>Excellent communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate expertise into clear operational and product guidance for AI systems. </li> <li>Ability to collaborate effectively with engineers, researchers, designers, and product managers </li> <li>Ability to make and communicate tradeoffs and clear decisions in ambiguous environments </li> <li>Experience building with LLMs, conversational AI, or generative AI products </li> <li>Up to date on current clinical AI best practices and emerging guidelines and standards.</li> </ul> Preferred Qualifications:  <ul> <li>Experience leading annotation or human evaluation programs </li> <li>Experience developing AI evaluation benchmarks or automated evaluation systems </li> <li>Experience working closely with product or engineering teams </li> </ul> About Flagship  Flagship Pioneering is a bioplatform innovation company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture.  Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies, and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at <a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flagshippioneering.com%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cemccurdy%40flagshippioneering.com%7C723eebecb4fd441a8d4808dbc3706637%7Cd00b8682fc8b4548b82dda0524788e9b%7C0%7C0%7C638318659764104453%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ZLQGwoiIX4KB%2FcilEz8n9NdaOq6EQCJ3GpW8RIYr1Zw%3D&reserved=0">www.flagshippioneering.com</a>.  Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.   At Flagship, we recognize there is no perfect candidate. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, please apply anyway. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your unique background.  Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.  <div class="content-conclusion">   Privacy Notice for Applicants: When you apply for a role at Flagship Pioneering or one of its portfolio companies, we collect and use personal information you provide (such as your name, contact details, work history, and application materials) to evaluate your application, communicate with you, and comply with legal obligations. Your application data is processed through Greenhouse, our applicant tracking system, and may also be reviewed using AI-assisted screening tools. We do not sell your personal information. California residents have rights under the CCPA/CPRA including to know, delete, and opt out of the sharing of their personal information. If you are located in the EU or UK, we process your data under GDPR and you have rights to access, rectify, and erase your data. To exercise your rights or for questions, contact [email protected].  </div> The salary range for this role is $138,000 - $181,500. Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience. Iris Labs, Inc. currently offers healthcare coverage, annual incentive program, retirement benefits and a broad range of other benefits. Compensation and benefits information is based on Iris Labs, Inc.'s good faith estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future.<div class="content-conclusion">  Privacy Notice for Applicants: When you apply for a role at Flagship Pioneering or one of its portfolio companies, we collect and use personal information you provide (such as your name, contact details, work history, and application materials) to evaluate your application, communicate with you, and comply with legal obligations. Your application data is processed through Greenhouse, our applicant tracking system, and may also be reviewed using AI-assisted screening tools. We do not sell your personal information. California residents have rights under the CCPA/CPRA including to know, delete, and opt out of the sharing of their personal information. If you are located in the EU or UK, we process your data under GDPR and you have rights to access, rectify, and erase your data. To exercise your rights or for questions, contact [email protected]. </div>

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