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Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform

AnthropicLondon, UKSoftware Engineering - Infrastructure
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Salary
Not listed
Job type
Full-time
Posted
7 May 2026
Status
Open · checked 7d ago

About this role

The Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform role at Anthropic in London involves owning and scaling large infrastructure to support frontier AI models. This position suits an experienced distributed systems engineer looking to solve massive scale and performance challenges.

Role Overview

Anthropic operates one of the largest AI compute fleets in the industry to research, train, and serve frontier AI models. The Kubernetes Platform team manages the underlying control plane that drives these expansive fleets across multiple datacenters and cloud providers. Operating at a scale where standard configurations no longer suffice, this team designs custom schedulers, optimizes the core control plane, and guarantees high availability and correctness. The selected candidate will directly influence how safely and reliably the company can expand its compute footprint.

Key Responsibilities

Take ownership of the Kubernetes scheduler for accelerator fleets, developing custom scheduling policies and plugins for topology awareness, gang scheduling, and preemption.
Scale control plane components including the apiserver, controller-manager, and etcd well beyond typical thresholds to anticipate bottlenecks.
Design, build, and operate vital cluster services such as service discovery that support every workload in the fleet.
Create and maintain custom operators, controllers, and Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs).
Partner closely with research, training, and inference divisions to translate workload needs into robust platform capabilities.
Collaborate directly with cloud providers regarding necessary features and technical escalations.
Participate in rotation for on-call duties, lead incident responses, and establish strong operational processes such as SLOs, runbooks, and postmortems.

Requirements

Extensive software engineering background focused on building and running production distributed systems.
Demonstrated proficiency in at least one systems-appropriate language, which may include Python, Rust, C++, or Go.
Deep, hands-on expertise with Kubernetes internals going far beyond basic usage, specifically involving the scheduler, apiserver, controllers, or multi-tenant cluster operations.
Proven ability to debug intricate issues spanning the entire stack, from API behaviors down to root causes at the network and node levels.
A strong history of designing resilient systems with clear failure semantics that other engineers rely upon.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to build consensus among internal stakeholders.
Relevant professional industry experience totaling 12 or more years, including leadership on large and ambiguous infrastructure initiatives.

Nice to Have

Practical experience with Kubernetes source code or contributions to projects like kube-scheduler, client-go, controller-runtime, etcd, or the scheduling framework.
Background in building or operating batch systems or cluster schedulers such as Volcano, Kueue, Slurm, or internal equivalents.
Experience scaling coordination systems and control planes like ZooKeeper, Consul, large service-mesh deployments, or etcd.
Familiarity with machine learning infrastructure including TPUs, GPUs, Trainium, collective networking via NCCL, topology-aware placement, and gang scheduling.
Working knowledge of AWS and/or GCP, covering Infrastructure as Code and the internals of EKS or GKE.
Low-level systems knowledge encompassing cgroups, Linux kernel tuning, or eBPF.

Skills and Tools

Kubernetes (Scheduler, Control Plane, Apiserver, etcd)
Python
Rust
C++
AWS and GCP

Salary and Benefits

Annual Salary: £325,000 to £485,000 GBP
Competitive compensation and benefits package
Optional equity donation matching
Generous vacation time and parental leave
Flexible working hours
Collaborative hybrid office environment

About the Company

Anthropic is a public benefit corporation dedicated to building reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems that remain safe and beneficial for society. Operating with an empirical science mindset similar to physics and biology, the organization functions as a single cohesive team tackling large-scale research initiatives.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should submit their application directly on the official Anthropic careers page.

Skills and tech stack

PythonAWSGCPKubernetesRustC++

Questions candidates ask

What is the location of this role?

This position is located in London, UK, with a location-based hybrid policy requiring staff to be in the office at least 25% of the time.

What is the salary range for the Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform position?

The annual salary range is between £325,000 and £485,000 GBP.

Does Anthropic offer visa sponsorship for this role?

Yes, Anthropic does sponsor visas and provides assistance through a retained immigration lawyer if an offer is extended.

How many years of experience are required?

The role requires 12+ years of relevant industry experience, including time spent leading large and ambiguous infrastructure projects.

What programming languages are expected?

Candidates should have proficiency in at least one systems-appropriate language such as Python, Rust, C++, or Go.

Ready to apply?

The application is on the official Anthropic careers page.

Apply on company site