Staff+ Software Engineer (Caching)

• We’re looking for experienced engineers to build Anthropic’s cache layer as a managed service from the ground up.
• The Caching team is part of the Databases organization and owns the systems that keep Anthropic’s hottest paths fast and correct: a managed Redis fleet, client libraries used across the company, and CDC-driven cache invalidation that solves one of distributed systems’ hardest problems the right way
• This is a foundational role on a small team with outsized leverage. Every millisecond you take off a hot path is multiplied across every Claude request
• You’ll set the technical direction for caching at Anthropic, from the data plane to the developer experience, and you’ll work closely with product and research teams to make caching something engineers get for free rather than something they have to think about
• Drive the technical direction for caching infrastructure used across Product and Research
• Design, build, and operate a managed Redis fleet that scales to support millions of users across Claude’s product ecosystem
• Build client libraries and developer-facing abstractions that make correct caching the default for Anthropic engineers
• Design and operate CDC-driven cache invalidation that keeps cached data consistent with source-of-truth databases
• Architect caching solutions that operate across GCP, AWS, first-party deployments, and other environments
• Optimize latency, hit rates, reliability, and cost efficiency on Anthropic’s hottest paths
• Build observability and tooling that makes cache behavior easy to understand and debug
• Partner with product and research teams to understand access patterns and build infrastructure that accelerates their work
• Make build-vs-buy decisions for caching technologies

Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents
• Inclusive fertility benefits via Carrot Fertility
• 22 weeks of paid parental leave
• Flexible paid time off and absence policies
• Mental health support for you and your dependents
• Competitive salary and equity packages
• Optional equity donation matching at a 1:1 ratio, up to 25% of your equity grant
• Retirement plans with competitive matching
• Life and income protection plans
• $500/month flexible wellness and time saver stipend
• Commuter benefits
• Annual education stipend
• Home office stipends
• Relocation support for those moving for Anthropic
• Daily meals and snacks in the office

• Experience operating Redis, Memcached, or similar in-memory data stores in production
• Strong technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills
• Track record of leading large, complex infrastructure projects as an engineer or tech lead
• Significant experience as a software engineer building and operating production distributed systems
• Deep knowledge of caching architectures, including invalidation strategies, consistency tradeoffs, and failure modes
• Ability to balance moving quickly with the reliability needs of production systems
• Proficiency in at least one systems programming language (e.g., Go, Rust, Java, C++) or Python at scale
• Note: Prior AI/ML infrastructure experience is not required. We value deep infrastructure expertise from any domain
• Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position
• Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience
• Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience
• We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed
• 10+ years building and scaling distributed infrastructure, with 3+ years leading large-scale projects or teams
• Contributions to caching systems, database internals, or related open source projects
• Experience operating Redis Cluster, Valkey, ElastiCache, Memorystore, or similar managed offerings at scale
• Experience with change data capture (Debezium or similar) or streaming data infrastructure
• Experience building managed infrastructure platforms or internal services consumed by many engineering teams
• Experience scaling infrastructure through periods of rapid growth at high-growth companies
• Experience designing client libraries or SDKs for internal infrastructure
• Experience with multi-cloud or hybrid cloud deployments