DFKI Postdoctoral Position in AI Safety, Ethics and Agentic Systems
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
DFKI is recruiting a full-time postdoctoral researcher for a 36-month role developing safe autonomous agents with explicit, inspectable normative constraints across AI safety, formal ethics and agentic-system design. Applications close September 15, 2026.
The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is hiring a Senior Researcher/PostDoc in AI Safety, Ethics and Agentic Systems. The full-time, 36-month position is based in Saarbruecken or Darmstadt and can begin at the earliest possible date.
The project focuses on safe and controllable agentic AI with explicit, inspectable normative constraints. Research will combine model-internal control with formal representations of legal, organizational, ethical and preference-based norms, then integrate these mechanisms into an end-to-end autonomous-agent system.
The role spans DFKI groups in Neuro-mechanistic Modeling, SAINT and Machine Learning and Testing. Supervision can be tailored across interpretability, formal ethics and agentic-system design, with Kevin Baum, Dominik Hintersdorf and Simon Ostermann among the principal supervisors.
Employment: DFKI offers competitive, market-based compensation for a full-time 36-month contract. The salary amount is not published.
How to apply: submit the official DFKI online application by September 15, 2026, quoting reference 11386-2026.
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This independent listing was last checked on September 1, 2026. We compare the named provider, deadline status, eligibility, funding claims and application destination where those details are available. The live provider page is the final authority.
Benefits
- Competitive, market-based salary for a 36-month full-time contract; exact amount not published.
- Access to DFKI compute resources and interdisciplinary AI-safety expertise.
- Substantial research ownership with flexible supervision across three research groups.
- Opportunities to participate in European research networks, publish at leading venues and supervise students.
- Employee benefits may include Urban Sports Club access, corporate benefits and a Jobticket subsidy.
Eligibility summary
- Open to qualified applicants of any nationality; no nationality restriction is stated.
- Applicants must hold a relevant PhD and be available for full-time employment in Saarbruecken or Darmstadt, Germany.
- DFKI encourages applications from women in science and gives preference to applicants with disabilities when equally qualified.
Requirements
- PhD in computer science, artificial intelligence, formal methods, mathematics or a closely related field.
- Substantial software-engineering experience; DFKI identifies this as a firm requirement.
- Strong foundation in at least one of formal specification and verification, logic, AI safety and alignment, or mechanistic interpretability.
- Willingness to work across formal methods, ethics, interpretability and agentic systems.
- Strong Python skills and evidence of research impact or publications.
- Experience with temporal logic, reward machines, shielding, safe reinforcement learning, agentic systems, normative logic or regulated AI domains is desirable.
Documents required
- Completed DFKI online application form.
- Curriculum vitae.
- Cover letter or statement describing research alignment.
- Doctoral degree certificate and academic records.
- Publication list, software portfolio or other evidence of research and engineering impact.
- Any additional documents requested by the DFKI application portal.
Language/test requirements
How to submit applications
Provider: German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
Official DFKI vacancy reference 11386-2026. Full-time, temporary, 36 months. Deadline September 15, 2026.
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