Applied AI Engineer, Startups (Physical AI)

Details

As an Applied AI Engineer on the Startups team, you will be a trusted technical advisor to AI-native startups building in the physical world across robotics, semiconductors, aerospace, manufacturing, and civil infrastructure. You will help companies build products on Claude and use Claude in their engineering workflows, advising on implementation, agent design, evaluation, and scalable architectures.

You will work with startup software and hardware engineering teams on applications spanning design, simulation, testing, production, and operations. You will also collaborate with Applied AI Architects, Account Executives, and Anthropic's Product, Engineering, and Research teams.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a deep technical advisor to startups building in the physical world, including applications in engineering, manufacturing, and operations.
• Work hands-on with software and hardware teams through pair programming and architecture reviews.
• Understand engineering workflows from design and simulation through testing, production, and operations.
• Develop prototypes and technical documentation, including evaluation suites, benchmarks based on real engineering tasks, AI engineering techniques, and architecture diagrams.
• Create reference implementations and sample code integrating Claude with CAD, simulation, design tools, or industrial automation.
• Collaborate with Applied AI Architects to maintain context and continuity across customer engagements.
• Identify challenges in applying AI to physical systems, including reading drawings, 3D geometry, board layout and routing, GD&T, latency, on-premises constraints, and physical safety.
• Build repeatable evaluations and solutions and contribute insights to Product, Engineering, Research, and the broader Applied AI team.
• Create technical content, including documentation, tutorials, and sample code.
• Foster community engagement through hackathons, webinars, technical office hours, and startup-focused events.
• Travel to customer sites for workshops, implementation guidance, and relationship building.

Requirements

• Deep engineering experience in a physical discipline such as mechanical, electrical, aerospace, robotics, semiconductor, manufacturing, or civil engineering, gained through designing, building, or operating real hardware.
• At least 4 years of technical experience as a software engineer, ML or research engineer, robotics or controls engineer, hardware or systems engineer, or technical founder.
• Production experience building LLM-powered applications, including prompting, context engineering, agent architectures, evaluation frameworks, and deployment at scale; alternatively, a track record of applying AI to engineering work in design, simulation, testing, or production.
• Experience with startups or high-growth companies and an interest in working with founders and small teams.
• Strong technical communication skills, including the ability to translate complex AI concepts into architectural decisions and actionable implementation plans for software and hardware audiences.
• Experience running technical workshops, hackathons, or developer-focused events.
• A collaborative, generalist approach and the ability to quickly learn new domains.
• Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.
• Relevant field of study demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience.

Compensation

Annual salary: $280,000–$320,000 USD.

Benefits

Anthropic offers competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and office space for collaboration. Staff are currently expected to be in an Anthropic office at least 25% of the time, although some roles may require more office time.