Staff Software Engineer, Labs: Applied AI

at Anthropic

📍 New York City, United States
📍 San Francisco, United States

USD 320,000-405,000 per year

SENIOR

✅ Hybrid

✅ Visa Sponsorship

Used Tools & Technologies

Machine Learning LLM

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.

Communication @ 4 AI @ 4

Details

Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. Applied AI within Anthropic Labs explores how frontier AI capabilities (e.g., Claude) can be translated into practical applications for professionals in domains that are not software-native. Engineers on this team rapidly prototype full-stack applications, partner closely with researchers and domain experts, and iterate with real users to discover high-impact product opportunities.

Responsibilities

Rapidly prototype full-stack applications that bring frontier AI into non-software-first workflows, shipping early and often to maximize learning
Immerse in unfamiliar domains: sit with users, learn how their work actually gets done, and encode that understanding into products, evaluations, and workflows
Collaborate closely with research teams to understand new model capabilities and translate them into tools for non-technical professionals
Work with internal teams and external partners across industries to gather feedback, iterate quickly, and validate or invalidate product concepts
Design and run structured experiments to test hypotheses, balancing creative exploration with rigorous evaluation
Generate documentation and insights to guide successful prototypes toward full product teams
Provide feedback to research teams about model effectiveness in real-world, domain-heavy settings and where capabilities can improve
Flexibly contribute across Labs initiatives and transfer learnings between projects

Requirements

8+ years of experience building full-stack applications, with a track record of zero-to-one work in startup or startup-like environments
Strong user-centric mindset: validate ideas with actual users before over-investing and measure success by real-world adoption
Comfortable with ambiguity, rapid iteration, and treating work as experiments (able to kill projects when data indicates)
High agency, bias toward shipping, and pragmatic trade-offs with technical debt when appropriate
Ability to communicate complex AI capabilities clearly to non-technical audiences
Willingness to work independently with good judgment and to collaborate closely with research and domain experts
Care about societal impacts and ethics of AI

Strong candidates may also have

Experience building products for industries outside of tech (healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, construction, energy, agriculture, financial services, education, public sector)
Previous career or deep hands-on exposure in a non-software field (having been the user these products serve)
Background conducting embedded or field-based discovery: user research, interviews, ride-alongs, usability testing with frontline professionals
Experience integrating with industry systems (ERPs, EHRs, CRMs, dispatch, scheduling, point-of-sale systems)
Experience shipping software or AI applications to non-technical or frontline users and measuring adoption
Hands-on applied AI experience (building and deploying AI/ML products or large language model-based applications)
Experience collaborating directly with research teams in AI/ML environments

Candidates need not have

100% of the skills listed above
Formal certifications or specific education credentials
Direct ML or AI research experience

Logistics

Annual salary range: $320,000 - $405,000 USD
Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience
Required field of study: Relevant field as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience
Minimum years of experience: Correlates with internal job level requirements
Location-based hybrid policy: staff are expected to be in one of Anthropic's offices at least 25% of the time (some roles may require more)
Visa sponsorship: Anthropic states they do sponsor visas and retain an immigration lawyer to assist where feasible

Benefits

Competitive compensation and benefits
Optional equity donation matching
Generous vacation and parental leave
Flexible working hours
Office space for collaboration

About Anthropic

Anthropic is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco focused on building steerable, trustworthy AI. The organization emphasizes large-scale collaborative research, communication, and empirical approaches to AI safety and capability development.