Staff Software Engineer (Labs: Applied AI)

Join Anthropic, a leading AI safety and research company, as a Staff Software Engineer in our Labs: Applied AI team. In this role, you will rapidly prototype full-stack applications that integrate frontier AI capabilities into workflows that have never been software-first. You will collaborate closely with research teams, immerse yourself in unfamiliar domains, and design structured experiments to test hypotheses. This position offers comprehensive benefits, a competitive salary, and the opportunity to make a significant impact in the field of AI.

• Rapidly prototype full-stack applications that integrate frontier AI into workflows, shipping early and often to maximize learning.
• Collaborate closely with research teams to understand new model capabilities and translate them into tools that non-technical professionals can easily use.
• Design and run structured experiments to test hypotheses, balancing creative exploration with rigorous evaluation.
• We're looking for versatile, entrepreneurial engineers who are energized by building for users unlike themselves
• You'll need to be comfortable with ambiguity, willing to kill your own projects when the data says to, and energized by the pace of building in uncharted territory
• Are a generalist who can transition between different problem spaces as priorities shift
• Can articulate learnings from failed or killed projects without defensiveness; you treat your work as experiments
• Hold strong opinions loosely — you advocate forcefully for ideas but change your mind based on evidence
• Are deeply user-centric — you validate ideas with actual users before over-investing and talk about problems before solutions
• Work independently with good judgment about what matters, without needing constant direction
• Have 8+ years of experience building full-stack applications, with a track record of zero-to-one work in startup or startup-like environments
• Thrive in ambiguity and are energized (not anxious) by uncertainty — you're comfortable working on projects that might not exist in three months
• Have a hacker mentality: high agency, bias toward shipping, comfort with technical debt when it's the right tradeoff
• Care about the societal impacts and ethics of your work
• Are deeply curious about how other industries work, and enjoy translating messy, real-world workflows into simple software
• Communicate effectively and can make complex AI capabilities feel intuitive to people who don't think in software
• Experience collaborating directly with research teams in AI/ML environments
• Background conducting embedded or field-based discovery: user research, interviews, ride-alongs, and usability testing with frontline professionals
• Experience integrating with the systems these industries actually run on (ERPs, EHRs, CRMs, dispatch, scheduling, or point-of-sale systems)
• Experience building products for industries outside of tech — e.g., healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, construction, energy, agriculture, financial services, education, or the public sector
• Hands-on applied AI experience — you've built and deployed products powered by AI/ML or large language models
• Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience
• Formal certifications or education credentials
• Direct machine learning or AI research experience
• Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience
• Candidates need not have:
• A previous career, or deep hands-on exposure, in a field outside of software — you've been the user these products serve
• 100% of the skills listed above
• Experience shipping software or AI applications to non-technical or frontline users — you know how to design for people who will never read documentation, and you measure success by real-world adoption rather than technical elegance
• 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