Staff + Software Engineer

Who you are

• Have strong systems fundamentals (processes, threads, RPC, storage, and how systems fail) and have built and operated large-scale, fault-tolerant distributed systems
• Have built and operated systems that handle sensitive or high-value data, with access, privacy, retention and security controls designed in from the start
• Have a track record of building platforms or internal tooling that other teams widely adopt
• Have led the technical design of projects that span several engineers or teams
• Learn quickly and adapt: you're comfortable with ambiguity, a fast pace, and systems or languages you haven't used before
• Care about the impact of your work and about making AI safe, use good judgment about what matters most, and can explain technical trade-offs to non-technical partners
• Proficiency in one or more systems languages (e.g., C, C++, Rust, Go)
• 8+ years of experience as a software engineer, and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or comparable professional experience
• Experience building data infrastructure for ML: training datasets, offline batch inference or evaluation
• Experience with data governance requirements in a regulated or high-sensitivity domain
• Fluency with agentic coding tools such as Claude Code
• 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
• Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position
• We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification

What the job involves

• Claude serves millions of individual users alongside enterprise clients
• Safeguards Engineering develops the foundational infrastructure that ensures its safe use: robust access controls, active abuse detection, real-time probes and classifiers within the inference pipeline, offline monitoring for review, and the underlying systems powering it all
• Operating at scale and velocity, we continuously adapt to technology whose capabilities and risks evolve weekly
• The Safeguards Data team owns the data lifecycle for Safeguards—routing user data and safety metadata from online systems into offline storage and enabling access for downstream teams
• Our goal is to provide privacy-safe access to sensitive data for approved uses while ensuring performance, reliability, and minimal blast radius
• We prioritize security by design, embedding controls directly into systems operating across AWS, GCP, Azure, and customer-managed environments
• This is a systems engineering position within a small, newly established team
• Rather than managing an existing backlog, you will have the autonomy to own a problem domain, establish its technical vision, and shape the team's trajectory
• Design, build, and operate the stores, pipelines, schemas, and APIs that Safeguards' detection, evaluation, investigation, and review systems read from
• Build privacy-safe interfaces that allow ML training, evaluation, and investigation workflows to utilize sensitive data without requiring broad access to raw records, ensuring access is tied to purpose and built-in lineage
• Scale the distributed storage, ingestion, and processing systems operated by Safeguards, maintaining cost efficiency, reliability, and portability across deployment environments
• Collaborate with investigators, researchers, legal, privacy, and security teams to translate operational requirements into functional mechanisms and systems for safe data utilization
• Uphold a high operational bar by participating in the on-call rotation, leading incident reviews, and continuously reducing manual operational overhead
• Lead through technical design by authoring foundational proposals and conducting cross-team architectural reviews

Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents
• Inclusive fertility benefits via Carrot Fertility
• 22 weeks of paid parental leave
• Flexible paid time off and absence policies
• Mental health support for you and your dependents
• Competitive salary and equity packages
• Optional equity donation matching at a 1:1 ratio, up to 25% of your equity grant
• Retirement plans with competitive matching
• Life and income protection plans
• $500/month flexible wellness and time saver stipend
• Commuter benefits
• Annual education stipend
• Home office stipends
• Relocation support for those moving for Anthropic
• Daily meals and snacks in the office