Machine Learning Systems Engineer - Infrastructure & Runtime, Horizons

Details

Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems that are safe and beneficial for users and society. The Horizons team focuses on reinforcement learning research and development, contributing to advanced AI models and scalable infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement high-performance, reliable data pipelines for large-scale code datasets
• Build and maintain secure sandboxed execution environments using virtualization technologies like GVisor and Firecracker
• Develop infrastructure supporting reinforcement learning training environments balancing security and performance
• Optimize resource utilization in distributed computing through profiling and systems-level improvements
• Collaborate with researchers to translate needs into scalable, production-grade AI experimentation systems

Requirements

• Proficiency in Python and async/concurrent programming with frameworks like Trio
• Experience with container technologies and virtualization systems
• Strong systems programming skills and performance optimization knowledge
• Experience with data pipeline development and ETL processes
• Commitment to code quality, testing, and performance
• Effective communication with technical and research teams
• Passion for building safe and beneficial AI systems

Strong candidates may have

• Experience with cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes orchestration
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, Pulumi, etc.)
• Contributions to open source in systems/infrastructure
• Knowledge of Rust and/or C++ for performance-critical components
• Experience implementing security controls for code execution
• Comfort translating ML research concepts into engineering requirements

Strong candidates need not have

• Formal certifications or degrees
• Previous experience with LLMs, reinforcement learning, or ML research

Benefits

Competitive compensation including an annual salary range of $300,000 - $405,000 USD, visa sponsorship efforts, flexible working hours, generous vacation and parental leave, equity donation matching, and a collaborative office environment in San Francisco. Anthropic fosters diversity and encourages applications from underrepresented groups, emphasizing communication and impact in research work.