Compute Lead

About Goodfire Goodfire is an AI interpretability research lab. We build interpretability agents and infrastructure to understand, monitor, and align AI models. We believe that AI is the most consequential technology of our time. Yet AI models are trained by trial and error today, with limited understanding of what drives their behavior. Our goal is to advance the research and technology needed to fully understand and align AI so humanity can trust superintelligence. Goodfire is a public benefit corporation founded by researchers who helped pioneer the field of interpretability at OpenAI and Google DeepMind. We are headquartered in San Francisco and have raised over $200M from leading investors including Lightspeed, Menlo, and B Capital. About the role We’re hiring a Compute Lead to own one of the most critical resources at the company: our compute for model training, research, and customers. You’ll run everything from how we allocate our compute to how we source, test, and secure capacity. You’ll make the day-to-day calls that determine how far our world-class research and product ambitions can go. We’re looking for someone who can navigate GPU scarcity and partner negotiations with rigor, and moves with exceptional urgency. You’ll need strong judgment to balance competing demands across teams and the conviction to make hard trade-offs rather than split the difference. You might be the right fit if you find the intersection of infrastructure, operations, and high-stakes resource allocation exhilarating. Key responsibilities • Manage Goodfire’s compute allocations across training, research, and customer workloads • Source and secure capacity: gather availability and pricing across providers, move quickly on the best options, and take deals from first call through contract and delivery • Own cluster acceptance testing: define acceptance criteria with our infrastructure team and run burn-in and performance testing before we sign off • Monitor cluster health once live: track node failures and downtime, and drive fixes with providers • Track utilization and quota usage by project, flag idle or underused capacity, and reallocate quickly so GPUs are going to our highest-priority work • Partner closely with research and product teams to translate roadmaps into concrete compute requirements and ensure infrastructure never becomes a bottleneck • Build forecasting models that anticipate compute demand and enable confident long-term planning and budgeting Our values Goodfire is looking for individuals who embody our values and share our deep commitment to making interpretability accessible. We are building a team first and foremost. Put mission and team first All we do is in service of our mission. We trust each other, deeply care about the success of the organization, and choose to put our team above ourselves. Improve constantly We are constantly looking to improve every piece of the business. We proactively critique ourselves and others in a kind and thoughtful way that translates to practical improvements in the organization. We are pragmatic and consistently implement the obvious fixes that work. Take ownership and initiative There are no bystanders here. We proactively identify problems and take full responsibility over getting a strong result. We are self-driven, own our mistakes, and feel deep responsibility over what we’re building. Action today We have a small amount of time to do something incredibly hard and meaningful. The pace and intensity of the organization is high. If we can take action today or tomorrow, we will choose to do it today. Where we work We are hiring for this position in our San Francisco office who’d be onsite 5 days a week. What we offer This role offers market competitive salary, equity, and competitive benefits. The expected salary range for this position is $200-400k. This role reports to our Head of Finance. Most importantly, you'll have the opportunity to join a vital mission at an important point in its trajectory — we are developing groundbreaking technology with a world-class team on the critical path to ensuring a safe and beneficial future for humanity. If you want to do your life’s work with us, even if you believe you do not meet every single requirement, apply now.