Research Engineer - Pretraining

at Anthropic

📍 London, United Kingdom

GBP 260,000-630,000 per year

MIDDLE

✅ Hybrid

✅ Visa Sponsorship

Used Tools & Technologies

LLM GPU

Required Skills & Competences
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

Kubernetes @ 2 Python @ 3 ETL @ 3 Algorithms @ 3 Machine Learning @ 6 Communication @ 6 PyTorch @ 3 Deep Learning @ 3 AI @ 3 Reinforcement Learning @ 3

Details

Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. This Research Engineer role on the Pretraining team contributes to developing the next generation of large language models, working at the intersection of research and engineering to build safe, steerable, and trustworthy AI systems.

Responsibilities

Conduct research and implement solutions in areas such as model architecture, algorithms, data processing, and optimizer development.
Independently lead small research projects and collaborate on larger initiatives.
Design, run, and analyze scientific experiments to advance understanding of large language models.
Optimize and scale training infrastructure to improve efficiency and reliability.
Develop and improve developer tooling to enhance team productivity.
Contribute across the stack from low-level optimizations to high-level model design.

Requirements

Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field (Bachelor's or equivalent experience required at minimum).
Strong software engineering skills and a proven track record of building complex systems.
Expertise in Python and experience with deep learning frameworks (PyTorch preferred).
Familiarity with large-scale machine learning, particularly language models.
Ability to balance research goals with practical engineering constraints.
Strong problem-solving skills, results-oriented mindset, and excellent communication skills.
Care about the societal impacts of your work.

Preferred Experience

Experience with high-performance, large-scale ML systems.
Familiarity with GPUs, Kubernetes, and OS internals.
Experience with language modeling using transformer architectures.
Knowledge of reinforcement learning techniques.
Background in large-scale ETL and data processing pipelines.

Sample Projects

Optimizing the throughput of novel attention mechanisms.
Comparing compute efficiency of different Transformer variants.
Preparing large-scale datasets for efficient model consumption.
Scaling distributed training jobs to thousands of GPUs.
Designing fault tolerance strategies for training infrastructure.
Creating interactive visualizations of model internals (e.g., attention patterns).

Compensation & Logistics

Annual Salary: £260,000 - £630,000 GBP.
Location: London, United Kingdom. Location-based hybrid policy: staff are expected to be in an office at least 25% of the time (role-level expectations may vary).
Education: at least a Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent experience is required.
Visa sponsorship: Anthropic states they do sponsor visas and will make reasonable efforts and retain immigration counsel to assist when making an offer.

About Anthropic

Anthropic is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco focused on large-scale, safety-oriented AI research. The company emphasizes collaboration, impact, and communication across research and engineering teams.