Staff+ Software Engineer (Databases)

Join Anthropic, a leading AI research and development company, as a Staff+ Software Engineer on the Databases team. In this role, you will architect and operate the database infrastructure that powers Claude's products and supports frontier AI research workloads. You will drive the technical direction for database solutions, design and implement scalable database systems, and optimize database performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. This position offers a comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, paid parental leave, flexible paid time off, and competitive salary and equity packages.

• Architect and operate the systems that let millions of users interact with Claude while supporting frontier AI research workloads.
• Drive the technical direction for database solutions used across Product and Research, designing systems that handle billions of API requests.
• Build and scale database systems through 100x+ growth while maintaining reliability and performance, making build-vs-buy decisions for database technologies.
• Ability to balance moving quickly with the reliability needs of production systems
• Deep knowledge of distributed database architectures and OLTP systems at scale
• Proficiency with SQL and at least one major relational or distributed database engine (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, Spanner, CockroachDB, DynamoDB)
• Strong technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills
• Significant experience as a software engineer building and operating production database or storage systems
• Track record of leading large, complex infrastructure projects as an engineer or tech lead
• Experience scaling databases through periods of rapid growth at high-growth companies
• Experience with change data capture (Debezium or similar), large-scale data migration, or streaming data infrastructure
• Knowledge of database orchestration and automation at scale
• Experience with Redis, Temporal, vector databases, or async job processing frameworks
• 10+ years building and scaling database systems, with 3+ years leading large-scale projects or teams
• Experience building multi-cloud or hybrid cloud database solutions
• Note: Prior AI/ML infrastructure experience is not required. We value deep infrastructure and database expertise from any domain
• Contributions to database internals, storage engines, or related open source projects
• Experience operating Spanner, CockroachDB, TiDB, AlloyDB, or other globally distributed SQL databases in production
• We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed. Research shows that people who identify as being from underrepresented groups are more prone to experiencing imposter syndrome and doubting the strength of their candidacy, so we urge you not to exclude yourself prematurely and to submit an application if you're interested in this work