Staff+ Software Engineer, Distributed Systems
About this role
Detecting unwanted model behaviors and preventing disallowed use of models requires robust distributed infrastructure to keep AI systems safe and beneficial. Anthropic needs a software engineer on the Safeguards team to build distributed and scalable systems that monitor models, prevent misuse, and ensure user well-being from ambiguous starting points to production. Candidates will design sandboxed runtimes, manage capacity for long-running agent work, and deploy monitoring systems across multiple cloud-provider partner environments.
Successful engineers thrive in collaborative environments where they can partner closely with researchers, legal teams, and security professionals to ship detection work on a trusted platform. This role suits individuals who enjoy tackling complex infrastructure challenges while upholding principles of safety, transparency, and oversight.
What you will do
- Independently scope and lead complex, multi-month infrastructure projects from an ambiguous starting point through to a production system.
- Develop monitoring systems to detect unwanted behaviors from API partners, take automated enforcement actions, and surface data in internal dashboards for manual review.
- Stand up and run deployments of monitoring systems across multiple clouds, including inside cloud-provider partner environments where data residency laws apply.
- Design and harden the sandboxed runtime that AI agents execute in, incorporating isolation, network egress controls, least-privilege data access, audit logging, and insider-risk controls.
- Manage cost and capacity for large volumes of long-running agent work while setting and meeting service-level objectives for the platform.
- Partner with engineers, researchers, security, privacy, and legal teams to ship new detection work quickly on a trusted platform.
What you need
- Hold a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or possess comparable experience in a relevant field.
- Demonstrate proficiency in Python, distributed systems, and Infrastructure as Code.
- Have worked across multiple cloud providers or built infrastructure designed to be provider-agnostic.
- Build and operate large-scale, distributed infrastructure such as data platforms, control planes, or job schedulers.
- Bring experience with sandboxing and isolation technologies like containers, microVMs, and network policies, or familiarity with a systems language such as Rust.
- Possess strong communication skills and the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
Nice to have
- 8+ years of experience in a software engineering position
- Experience building systems that handle sensitive or regulated data with requirements around access control, auditability, retention, and data residency
- Experience running LLM-based agents in production
- Experience with integrity, spam, fraud, or abuse detection and mitigation
Benefits
- Competitive compensation and benefits
- Optional equity donation matching
- Generous vacation and parental leave
- Flexible working hours
- Lovely office space in which to collaborate with colleagues
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the remote work or office policy?
Anthropic has a location-based hybrid policy where all staff are expected to be in one of the offices at least 25% of the time, though some roles may require more time in the offices.
What is the compensation range for this role?
The annual base salary range for this role is $320,000 to $485,000 USD.
Is visa sponsorship available?
Anthropic does sponsor visas and retains an immigration lawyer to help with the process, making every reasonable effort to secure a visa if an offer is made.