Staff Software Engineer (Infrastructure, Distributed Systems)

• Anthropic’s Infrastructure organization builds and operates the distributed systems that train, serve, and secure our AI models
• That includes data pipelines, some of the largest Kubernetes clusters in the world, and the databases, observability, and developer tooling that every other team at Anthropic depends on
• As a Staff Software Engineer on the Infrastructure team, you’ll scope and lead complex, multi-month infrastructure projects, make the architectural decisions other engineers build on, and work with research and product teams to build systems that keep pace as their needs change
• Team placement happens after the interview process, based on your interests and experience alongside organizational needs. This helps us match you with the team where you’ll have the most impact
• Independently scope and lead complex, multi-month infrastructure projects, from an ambiguous starting point through to a production system
• Make architectural decisions that shape the foundation other engineers and teams build on
• Drive alignment on technical direction across teams, working through ambiguous problem spaces
• Partner with research and product teams to understand their infrastructure and compute needs, and turn them into technical designs
• Own the reliability, scalability, and security of the systems you build as usage and complexity grow
• Set technical strategy and standards for your team’s infrastructure
• Build and improve operational processes such as incident response, postmortems, and on-call rotations, so the team learns from every incident
• Mentor other engineers and help raise the technical bar for the team

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

• A history of independently scoping and delivering complex, ambiguous, multi-month technical projects
• Strong software engineering fundamentals and proficiency in at least one programming language (for example, Python, Rust, Go, or Java)
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with experience driving alignment across teams or stakeholders
• Experience with modern cloud infrastructure, including Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code, on AWS and/or GCP
• Experience making architectural decisions that other engineers and teams build on
• Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems or infrastructure in production
• 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
• Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices
• 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
• Low-level systems experience, such as Linux kernel tuning or eBPF
• 10+ years of software engineering experience, not including internships
• Experience with machine learning infrastructure such as GPUs, TPUs, or Trainium, and associated networking like NCCL
• Prior experience as a technical lead or mentor for other engineers
• Background in security or privacy engineering best practices