Program Scientist, Agents

Job Description

Job DescriptionSchmidt Sciences is a nonprofit organization founded in 2024 by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that works to accelerate scientific knowledge and breakthroughs with the most promising, advanced tools to support a thriving planet. The organization prioritizes research in areas poised for impact including AI and advanced computing, astrophysics, biosciences, climate, and space—as well as supporting researchers in a variety of disciplines through its science systems program.
About the AI & Advanced Computing Institute (“AI Institute”) The AI Center at Schmidt Sciences is a grantmaking and research group that views AI as a transformative force for scientific discovery and societal progress. Over the next decade, we aim to support key researchers who are working to make AI systems competent, trustworthy, reliable, and able to effectively partner with human scientists on the next generation of discovery. We will also make selected distinctive investments in beneficial AI areas where philanthropy has a unique advantage. By supporting enabling infrastructure, foundational research, and targeted programs in science disciplines, the AI and Advanced Computing Center will create the conditions for AI-enabled discovery to achieve its promise. The AI Center currently has three focus areas:
1. AI for Science – using AI to improve how scientists generate hypotheses, conduct experiments, analyze data, and produce new knowledge – and do this in a way that specifically accelerates the discovery process.
2. Science of AI – understanding and controlling AI systems to mitigate and manage potential risks from advanced AI. Improve AI reliability and performance in areas of limited commercial interest and market failure. Existing programs include AI2050 and Science of Trustworthy AI.
3. Beneficial AI – providing scientific foundations and datasets for understanding the larger human impacts of AI. This includes selected high-impact grantmaking, such as our programs to use AI to accelerate humanities research, and to quantify the impact of AI on the labor market. About the AI Agents pilot program Research into AI agents is becoming an important component of Schmidt Sciences’ AI grantmaking. Our Trustworthy AI program and our AI2050 fellowship feature AI agents as a research focus, and we have sponsored several research workshops devoted to AI agents. We recently started a small pilot grantmaking program dedicated to an aspect of AI agent communication, and we expect to specifically support more agent-related research in the future.
This pilot program supports researchers in academia and nonprofits who are exploring how multiple intelligent agents communicate and coordinate with one another. As AI systems become more autonomous and agentic, they will increasingly interact with one another, acting and negotiating on our behalf. Given their differing incentives, capabilities, and operational contexts, many of these interactions will be spontaneous and unstructured. This dynamic raises important questions about how such agents will communicate, coordinate, and behave—and where failures or breakdowns may emerge. The pilot’s goal is to observe and measure the evolution of inter-agent communication and coordination, stability of predefined protocols, and social dynamics among AI agents in complex real-world scenarios and challenges.
The pilot program will focus initially on two areas:● Advancing foundational research on multi-agent communication and coordination.● Building an open-source platform where researchers can design and implement realistic challenges and test how multi-agent systems work together in complex, high-pressure environments. The platform will host realistic, demanding challenges that require agents with diverse training and capabilities to collaborate in order to succeed. These environments are designed to surface how agent communication and coordination strategies emerge, adapt, and sometimes diverge from earlier patterns under pressure. This program will produce published papers and other open research artifacts, insights for the agents research community, and a testbed for developing and running multi-agent challenges. If successful, this program will enable more robust and trustworthy agent design, as well as more effective teams and ad hoc collections of AI agents that cooperate while remaining legible to humans. The Role Reporting to the head of the AI Center at Schmidt Sciences, the Program Scientist will:● (Primary responsibility) Manage the AI Agents pilot program● Design and build new AI agents and other AI programs● Support other programs and program explorations across the AI Center● Contribute to the overall strategy of Schmidt Sciences
Key responsibilities for this role include the following:Managing the AI Agents Program

• Strategy & scientific direction: Oversee the program’s strategy, setting ambitious, concrete, and measurable goals for the program, being responsible for delivery against those goals, and helping to measure progress against the strategy.
• Budget: Manage the program’s budget, monitoring expenditures and forecasting future needs to ensure efficient use of resources.
• Team and Advisors: Manage the program’s team, ensuring the program has sufficient internal and external staff to execute its strategy, and securing additional resources when necessary. Manage and convene external advisors as needed to ensure program benefits from top scientific thinking at the intersection of AI and humanities.
• Sourcing & Selection: Oversee the program’s efforts to identify, source, and fund the best people and projects, in line with the program’s strategy.
• Grantee management & support: In collaboration with the Grantee Affairs Manager, Coordinate and maintain communication with awardee PIs and research teams to track progress and challenges faced over the duration of the award. Periodically assess if additional or different kinds of support could be necessary or beneficial.
• Assessment: Participate in the internal assessment process, including the analysis of incoming scientific proposals and reports in context of the current landscape. Assess program’s awards and other activities, utilizing metrics and analysis to measure success and inform strategic decision-making.
• Internal & External Communication: Engage organizational leadership to maintain clear awareness of communication about the program, ensuring leadership feedback is incorporated into the program. In coordination with the Communications Team, Manage external communication about the program, including website, social media, and interviews.
• Partnerships: Start, manage, and grow relationships with universities, scientific research institutions, science collaboratives/funds, incubators, science-focused government organizations, and philanthropic organizations.

Designing and Building New Programs

• Successful candidates are people who will want to stay at Schmidt Sciences for a long time and develop multiple different programs in AI, starting with a focus on AI agents.
• Develop ideas for promising AI agents and other AI programs, where philanthropy can have impact at the intersection of AI, science, and technology.
• Test initial ideas with internal and external experts to refine them.
• Develop and pitch program concepts to leadership.
• For programs that get approval for initial explorations (“seedlings”), develop the success criteria and execute on the initial exploration

Supporting the AI Center

• Strategy Support: Contribute to the design, evolution, and execution of the AI Center’s strategy.
• Programmatic Support: Design and build new AI-focused programs. Support existing AI Center programs by providing networking assistance, scientific expertise, and mentorship, as necessary, and by working closely and collaboratively with the teams responsible for delivery. Contribute to the team’s assessment of proposals. Envision, plan, and execute on strategic AI grants or other opportunities for AI and advanced computing, drawing on an extensive network in scientific and academic circles.
• Operational Support: Contribute to the improvement of the AI team’s operations, including our grantmaking, budgeting, events & convening, and other processes.
• Convening Support: Design and organize effective convenings around strategic program goals, including community building and accelerating science outcomes
• External Engagement: Act as a conduit for bringing in innovative ideas and perspectives from the AI community, actively engaging with stakeholders to identify emerging trends and opportunities for collaboration.
• New Programs: As needed, work with team members to develop new programs that might support technology, talent, or specific future pathways for the field.
• General Support: Contribute to the overall scientific priorities in the AI and advanced computing portfolio and set future directions for engagement.

Supporting Schmidt Sciences

• Serve as an expert advisor at Schmidt Sciences on topics in AI and advanced computing.
• Work with other members of the Schmidt Sciences team to drive organizational priorities and model our values.
• Identify potential partners for Schmidt Sciences, including universities, labs, other research facilities, and philanthropic and government organizations.
• Participate in relevant industry or academic conferences and events, representing Schmidt Sciences’ presence on AI and advanced computing issues.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• 4+ years of post-graduate experience
• Hands-on experience building and conducting research on generative AI agents, as evidenced by a developer portfolio and / or academic publications
• A scientific doctorate from an accredited institution
• Ability to critically analyze and assess grant proposals and other opportunities
• Demonstrated ability to develop partnerships and to lead efforts end-to end
• Demonstrated track record of scientific accomplishments, evidenced by peer-reviewed publications, patents, successful grant applications, or contributions to innovative research projects, ensuring the ability to bring expertise and insights to advance scientific objectives
• Demonstrated ability to develop research partnerships and to lead such efforts end-to-end
• Deep relationships in the AI community and experience working with AI-focused institutions
• Experience producing technical writing for expert and general audiences
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate and a record of impact in high-intensity, team-based environments
• The highest integrity and ability to maintain confidentiality.
• Be able to travel within the U.S. and internationally on a regular basis as needed.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Familiarity with standardized protocols like Agent2Agent and MCP
• Experience building "testbeds" or "sandboxes" for simulating multi-agent scenarios
• Experience in designing and implementing Multi-Agent Systems.
• Demonstrated ability to apply game theory or behavioral economics to agent interaction models
• Competency in managing open-source software lifecycles, ensuring the platform remains modular and accessible to the academic community
• Hands-on experience developing large language models or other foundation AI models, as well as applying these models to scientific research
• Experience working with other science-focused institutions such as philanthropic organizations or academic research institutions (e.g., Flatiron, AI2, Moore Foundation, NIH, NSF, DARPA)
• General scientific expertise that goes beyond areas of established credentials and degrees
• Public profile and extensive network in the sciences that will allow Schmidt Sciences to continue to build on our reputation in this area

This is an exempt position.
Schmidt Sciences, is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer that proudly pursues and hires adiverse workforce. We do not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color,religion or religious belief, ethnic or national origin, nationality, sex, gender, gender-identity, sexualorientation, disability, age, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable local,state, or federal laws or prohibited by Company policy. We strive for a healthy and safe workplace andstrictly prohibit harassment of any kind.