Software Engineer, Staff: Applied AI, Science & Engineering

Anthropic develops reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems intended to be safe and beneficial for society. The Staff Software Engineer will build agent harnesses, research loops, integrations, and evaluations that enable Claude to support scientific and engineering work, while collaborating directly with expert users and internal research and product teams.

Responsibilities

• Build the agent harnesses and research loops that let Claude carry a problem from literature review through hypothesis generation, simulation, analysis, and design iteration
• Connect scientific computing and simulation tools (finite element, CFD, electromagnetic, or molecular modeling codes, for example) so Claude can drive them reliably and at scale
• Design and build evaluations that tell us whether Claude's work is actually right, and be honest about where it isn't
• Sit with scientists and engineers at partner organizations to learn their problem, data, tools, and constraints, and turn open-ended questions into well-specified, verifiable tasks with clear success criteria
• Prototype with partners, ship pilots into their workflows, and cut anything that doesn't move the problem forward
• Turn what works in one engagement into shared tools, reusable components, and documented processes the next one can start from
• Be the technical voice on how Claude performs on science and engineering work, explaining results, limits, and tradeoffs clearly to researchers, engineering leads, and non-technical stakeholders alike
• Partner with our research and product teams to share where models fall short on science and engineering work, and help shape what comes next

Preferred

• A science or engineering background is a big plus
• An advanced degree or research experience in a physical science or engineering field
• Hands-on experience with scientific computing and simulation, numerical methods, or optimization
• Experience in industrial R&D, a national lab, or a deep-tech company in areas like energy, materials, manufacturing, or hardware
• Experience building alongside customers or technical partners, for example in forward-deployed, applied AI, or solutions engineering roles, ideally where you also owned the software that came out of it
• Experience with ML research, RL environments, or evaluation design
• Science
• engineering background
• Advanced degree in physical science
• Physical science research
• Engineering research
• Scientific computing
• Scientific simulation
• Numerical methods
• Optimization
• Industrial R&D
• National laboratory experience
• Deep-tech experience
• Energy industry experience
• Materials industry experience
• Manufacturing industry experience
• Hardware industry experience
• Customer-facing product development
• Technical partner collaboration
• Forward-deployed engineering
• Applied AI
• Solutions engineering
• Software ownership
• Machine learning research
• Reinforcement learning environments
• Evaluation design

Benefits

• **Visa sponsorship:** We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.
• Optional equity donation matching
• Generous vacation and parental leave
• Flexible working hours
• A lovely office space in which to collaborate with colleagues
• Visa sponsorship, with an immigration lawyer to help with this

Company

• AI safety research and Claude assistants for individuals, developers, organizations
• San Francisco, California, USA
• https://www.anthropic.com/
• Founded in 2021
• 501-1000 employees

Qualifications

• Have 8+ years of experience building software, with strong engineering fundamentals and comfort across the stack, from data pipelines to tooling to quick interfaces
• Have built real systems with large language models, including agents, tool use, or evaluations
• Have worked on technical problems in a science or engineering field, such as physics, materials, chemistry, or electrical or mechanical engineering
• Have a track record of zero-to-one work in startup or startup-like environments
• Can work directly with expert users, understand their workflows deeply, and still keep the focus on building the right system rather than the one first requested
• Have good judgment about what can and can't be verified, and are comfortable saying a result isn't good enough yet
• Bring high agency, pick up new domains quickly, and hold strong opinions loosely
• Communicate clearly with researchers, engineers, and external partners, and care about the societal impacts of your work
• Minimum education: Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience
• Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience
• A science or engineering background is a big plus
• An advanced degree or research experience in a physical science or engineering field
• Hands-on experience with scientific computing and simulation, numerical methods, or optimization
• Experience in industrial R&D, a national lab, or a deep-tech company in areas like energy, materials, manufacturing, or hardware
• Experience building alongside customers or technical partners, for example in forward-deployed, applied AI, or solutions engineering roles, ideally where you also owned the software that came out of it
• Experience with ML research, RL environments, or evaluation design

Required skills

• AI Agents, Full-Stack Development, Large Language Models, Machine Learning Evaluations, Numerical Methods, Optimization, Partner Collaboration, Science and Engineering Domain Expertise, Scientific Computing, Simulation

Preferred skills

• A science or engineering background is a big plus

Experience

• 8+ years