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cleverhack.comUpdated September 3, 2026
Most writing about getting into frontier AI assumes you are already in the pipeline — a PhD student, a lab intern, someone with a referral. This page is for everyone else.
These are the structured entry points into frontier AI and AI safety research: programs that take applications from outside, pay a stipend or cover costs, and end with you having done real work. Several were designed specifically for career-changers, and most say plainly that no PhD and no prior ML publications are required.
Considerations for inclusion:
- Open to applicants from outside the lab and academic hiring pipelines
- A defined cohort, curriculum, or mentorship structure — not just a job posting
- Funded, or costs covered, or free to the participant
- Currently operating, with a named upcoming or recent cohort
A note on timing. As of early September 2026, most cohorts for the coming winter have already closed. That is normal and it is the single most useful thing to understand about this landscape: these programs run on annual or semi-annual cycles, and the application windows are short. Each entry below lists when applications typically open so the page stays useful between cycles. Nearly every program keeps an expression-of-interest form — so filling those out is the highest-value thing to do when nothing is open.
Mentored research programs that produce a paper or a project. The most common route from outside the field into a lab research role.
• MATS — ML Alignment & Theory Scholars — https://www.matsprogram.org/ — Berkeley, USA — The largest and best-known technical AI safety research program, pairing scholars with mentors from the major labs for a full-time research sprint that frequently converts into lab roles.
➟ Apply: MATS 12.0 (Winter 2026-27) Application
➟ Status: Open — closes Friday September 4, 2026, 11:59pm PT
➟ Mentor guidance: Neel Nanda's MATS 12.0 application doc
• LASR Labs — https://www.lasrlabs.org/ — London, UK — A 13-week technical AI safety research programme where small teams take a project from conception through to publication, focused on concrete threat models and loss-of-control risk. Runs out of the London Initiative for Safe AI.
➟ Apply: Winter 2027 cohort, January 11 – April 9
➟ Status: Open now
➟ Stipend: £15,000, plus food, office space, and travel support
• ARENA — Alignment Research Engineer Accelerator — https://www.arena.education/ — London, UK — A 4-5 week in-person technical bootcamp for engineers moving into alignment work. Less a research program than the skills on-ramp that makes the research programs accessible.
➟ Status: ARENA 9.0 (October 5 – November 6, 2026) is closed — expression of interest form open for future cohorts
➟ Cost: Fully covered — travel, visa expenses, accommodation, and meals
➟ Requires: Python proficiency and foundational linear algebra, calculus, and probability
• Astra Fellowship — https://www.constellation.org/programs/astra-fellowship — Berkeley, USA — A fully funded five-month in-person fellowship at Constellation for people transitioning into full-time AI safety work or founding organizations. Explicitly states that prior AI safety experience is not required.
➟ Status: January 2026 cohort closed — expression of interest form open for future cohorts
➟ Stipend: $8,400 per month, plus roughly $15,000 per month in compute budget for empirical research fellows
• SPAR — Supervised Program for Alignment Research — https://www.sparai.org/ — Fully remote — A three-month part-time mentored research program, and the most accessible entry point on this page: remote, open to undergraduates through mid-career professionals, and welcoming to both technical and policy backgrounds with no prior research experience required.
➟ Status: Fall 2026 closed August 18 — Spring 2027 applications open around December
➟ Stipend: Unpaid; compute, API, and approved project expenses covered
• PIBBSS Fellowship — https://princint.ai/ — Remote / distributed — A three-month interdisciplinary fellowship pairing roughly 20 fellows from the complex systems sciences with AI safety mentors. The natural fit for people arriving from physics, biology, neuroscience, or the social sciences rather than ML. Now run by Principles of Intelligence, formerly PIBBSS.
➟ Status: Check site — cycle dates not currently posted
• AI Safety Camp — https://www.aisafety.camp/ — Virtual, organized by timezone — A long-running volunteer-led research incubator for people who have moved past "AI risk matters" to a specific technical confusion of their own. Explicitly welcomes perspectives outside conventional AI safety framings.
➟ Commitment: At least 10 hours per week, weekend-weighted
➟ Status: Check site for the current round
• Apart Research — https://www.apartresearch.com/ — Online and in-person — Runs three-day open research sprints that anyone can join, then develops the strongest results into published work through the Apart Fellowship. The lowest-commitment way to find out whether you like this work, with 40+ publications and 5,000+ sprint participants behind it.
➟ Next sprint: AI Incident Response Sprint, September 11–13, 2026
➟ Also runs: Seldon Accelerator, backing AI safety startups
Programs run by the labs themselves. Paid, competitive, and the shortest path to a full-time research role.
• Anthropic Fellows Program — https://alignment.anthropic.com/ — Remote / distributed — A four-month empirical AI safety research fellowship with weekly mentorship from Anthropic researchers. States directly: no PhD, no prior ML experience, and no published papers required — strong Python and technical problem-solving are what matter.
➟ Status: November 2026 cohort closed July 26 — watch the Anthropic job board for the next round
➟ Stipend: $3,850 per week (£2,310 GBP / $4,300 CAD), plus roughly $15,000 per month in compute
• Cohere Labs Scholars Program — https://cohere.com/research/scholars-program — Remote-first, no relocation required — A full-time paid annual cohort for emerging ML researchers, built around leading a research question through to publication. No prior publications or research experience required.
➟ Status: Closed — expected to open Fall 2026 for the January cohort
➟ Compensation: Full-time salaried
• Redwood Research — https://www.redwoodresearch.org/careers — Berkeley, USA — Not a cohort program but a standing open role. Listed here because Member of Technical Staff hiring is rolling, responses come within about two weeks, and Redwood points candidates toward MATS and Astra as the on-ramps.
➟ Compensation: $350,000 – $850,000 per year, depending on experience
➟ Status: Rolling
The non-technical pathways. These pay well, are less oversubscribed than the research programs, and actively want people with professional experience from other fields.
• GovAI — Centre for the Governance of AI — https://www.governance.ai/opportunities — Washington DC and London — Runs three-month winter and summer fellowships on both a research track and an applied track. The applied track is explicitly for communications, policy, operations, and program management professionals — rare and worth knowing about.
➟ Status: Winter 2027 cohorts (January 18 – April 9) closed — summer cycle follows
➟ Also runs: U.S. AI Policy Program, 12 weeks at 5 hours/week, free, for working policy professionals
• Horizon Fellowship — https://horizonpublicservice.org/fellowship/ — Washington DC — Places fully funded fellows inside host organizations working on AI and emerging technology policy, for 12 months at fellow level and renewable to 24. The best-compensated policy pathway on this page.
➟ Status: Closed — applications open annually around July and close around September
➟ Salary: $78,000 junior / $130,000 fellow / $190,000+ senior, plus $17,000 benefits stipend and relocation support
• IAPS AI Policy Fellowship — https://www.iaps.ai/fellowship — Washington DC or remote — A three-month fully funded fellowship on national security, procurement, export controls, and the geopolitics of AI, structured as a two-week DC residency followed by ten weeks of independent project work. Takes applicants from undergraduate through senior professional.
➟ Status: Closed — next cohort announced via newsletter
➟ Stipend: $15,000 fellows / $22,000 senior fellows, plus residency travel and accommodation
• Tarbell Center for AI Journalism — https://tarbellcenter.org/ — Newsroom placements, various — Funds journalists covering AI, through fellowships with placements at NPR, MIT Technology Review, The Guardian, and USA Today, plus grants and senior residencies. The pathway for writers and communicators rather than researchers.
➟ Fellowship: $60,000–$80,000 early-career, $90,000–$110,000 senior
➟ Grants: $1,000–$20,000 for freelancers, staff reporters, and newsroom teams
➟ Residencies: $80,000 plus stipend, for senior journalists and editors
No application, or a very low bar. Start here if the programs above look out of reach today.
• BlueDot Impact — https://bluedot.org/ — Online, plus in-person programs — The standard on-ramp to the field. Their courses are the ones the rest of the ecosystem assumes you have done, and the shortest is free, self-paced, and needs no application at all.
➟ The Future of AI: 2 hours, free, no application — finish it in an evening
➟ Also offers: grants for career transitions, and week-plus in-person programs
• ML4Good — https://www.ml4good.org/ — Regional, in-person — Eight-day intensive bootcamps run regionally, on two tracks: a technical programme for engineers and CS graduates, and a governance and strategy programme for policy, legal, operations, and communications people. Free to participants.
➟ Cost: Food, accommodation, and teaching provided at no cost; travel reimbursed if it is a barrier
➟ Status: Check the site for the bootcamp nearest you
Where the roles are listed, including the non-research ones.
• AISafety.com — https://aisafety.com/ — The most complete index of the field, and more thorough than this page by design: 502 job listings across research, policy, and operations, 109 training programs, 248 communities, 28 self-study courses, and a visual field map of 368 organizations and projects.
➟ Also offers: 27 advisors giving free 1-1 calls
• 80,000 Hours Job Board — https://jobs.80000hours.org/ — Hand-picked roles across research, policy, operations, and communications, with free 1-1 career advising attached. The best starting point if you do not yet know which lane you belong in.
• The Safety Apprentice — https://safetyapprentice.com/ — An AI safety job guide aimed at people working out how to enter the field.
• alphaXiv Researcher Profiles — https://www.alphaxiv.org/researchers — Researcher profiles built from published work. Useful for identifying who is actually working on a problem you care about, and who to name in an application.
Written by people who did the hiring, or who made the transition themselves.
• Vlad Feinberg, How to Land a Frontier Lab Job
• Jack Morris, So you want to do AI research? It's true that no one really teaches you how.
• Neel Nanda, How To Become A Mechanistic Interpretability Researcher
• Neel Nanda, MATS 12.0 (Winter 2026-27) — Apply here — Due Fri Sept 4th 11:59pm PT
Cohort dates, stipends, and application status were verified against each program's own site on September 3, 2026. These change constantly — always confirm on the program's page before relying on a date here. Corrections welcome: cleverhack at duck.com
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The Great Frontier AI Lab Product War Is Just Beginning
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Made with ♥ in Silicon Valley. Copyright © Joy Larkin 2002-2026.
contact
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speaking
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llms.txt
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