Interim AI Quality and Safety Principal

Please note that whilst we capture CVs as part of the application process, the initial sifting of applications occurs 'blind' and is based purely on the responses to the admin questions and sift questions. So please include sufficient detail as we won't have visibility of your CV at this stage. Please also make sure that you answer each question independently of each other, as they will be reviewed randomly, and the hiring panel will not know who the responses are from and how they relate to other questions at the initial sifting stage.

Interim AI Quality and Safety Principal (maternity leave cover)

Remote (UK-based) | Full-time | Flexible working | Competitive salary + excellent benefits

Do your best work, for the right reasons.

We’re looking for an interim AI Quality and Safety Principal to cover a period of maternity leave (anticipated to be for twelve months) and help us develop the use of AI across our education platform to support teachers and improve outcomes for pupils across the UK.

Oak is a fully remote, mission-driven organisation offering high levels of flexibility, autonomy, and purpose. We’re a national not-for-profit working in partnership with teachers to create the highest-quality, sequenced curriculum and lesson resources for pupils across all subjects and age groups.

Our culture has been independently recognised through:

• Flexa verified (93% overall score, including 95% for working hours and 97% for role modelling)

• Escape the City's Top 1% Employers – based on anonymous colleague reviews of culture, development, and impact

💡 About the Role

You’ll join our Product team working directly with the squad developing Aila, our AI-powered lesson planning tool, to help ensure that it meets the very highest quality and safety standards. The team is at the forefront of this work, producing leading research which has been published by MIT Open-learning.

As well as working with the squad day to day, you'll be engaging directly with schools and education stakeholders to represent our work in this area.

🔧 What You’ll Be Doing

• Responsible for the continuous improvement of the performance and function of AI quality and safety across all our education tools.

• Coordinating the testing and evaluation work related to our implementation of AI to ensure pedagogical rigour and safety expectations are met.

• Prioritising future iterations and developments of our AI work based on the pedagogical and safety implications for users.

• Building and maintaining relationships with senior stakeholders across government, technology and the education sector.

• Championing our work as an authority on AI quality and safety in education. This will include contributing to research, and influencing standards and best practice at a national level.  

• Manage relationships across our teams, and work directly with product managers and marketers, software engineers, machine learning and education experts to develop pioneering solutions to complex AI quality and safety problems.

• Maintain specialist knowledge, skills and expertise at the intersection of education and AI and be an authority across Oak and more widely across the sector.

• As a member of the Oak Team, you will contribute to the wider success and culture of the organisation and support and role model our five values: create the right environment, be a great colleague, own your role but work for the team, make things happen, and keep getting better.

• Work in cross-functional and product-oriented squads with colleagues from across the organisation, as required.

• Deputise for the Director of Product Strategy and Impact, and take on other general responsibilities as required.

🌱 What We’re Looking For

• 3+ years’ experience in a senior leadership role in education.

• Extensive knowledge of the latest research and practice in AI, evidence-based learning and educational assessment.

• Recognised expert in AI quality and safety with a strong track record of leading impactful initiatives and shaping public debate.

• Proven success in creating, evaluating and improving the quality and safety of AI products in education.

• Expert in understanding and explaining new complex, technological approaches to policymakers and education leaders in the emerging field of AI quality and safety. 

💛 Our Benefits

• 25 days annual leave, plus one extra day for each year of service (up to 28)

• Additional Oak closure days over Christmas/New Year

• 11% employer pension contribution (with no minimum employee contribution)

• A 36-hour working week, with half-days on Fridays or every other Friday off

• Fully remote working — we’ll support your home set-up and offer coworking options if preferred

• Termly in-person offsites to collaborate, connect, and have fun

• A culture that genuinely supports flexibility, autonomy, and trust

🌈 Inclusion and Belonging

We believe diverse teams build better products. We warmly welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those who are underrepresented in the tech and education sectors.

We use the Applied recruitment platform to help reduce bias in our hiring process. 

📌 Key Info

• Location: Remote, but you must be based in the UK with the legal right to work here

• Sponsorship: Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer visa sponsorship at this time

• Closing date: We’ll be reviewing applications as they come in and may close the role early

If this sounds like the kind of role and team where you could do your life’s best work, we’d love to hear from you.

Next steps

You’ll answer some questions related to your day-to-day job. After the advert closes, your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised, and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers (real humans).

If you are shortlisted, we’ll invite you to the next stage, which will consist of a remote interview with members of the team.

We love giving feedback, so at the end of the application process we'll share how well you performed.

We are aiming to start interviews in the week of 28th April.

We are experiencing really good responses to our job adverts. This may lead us to close the role early, so if you are considering applying then please get your application in early to avoid missing out.

We are an equal opportunities employer.

We are committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.