Staff Backend Engineer - Enterprise Platforms

Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems that benefit society. As millions of global developers and enterprise teams build on top of Claude, our product engineering group powers the backend infrastructure behind the Claude API, Claude Code, and Claude.ai.

As a Staff Backend Engineer, you will take technical ownership of backend systems driving core platform capabilities, scale multi-cloud infrastructure, and translate frontier AI research into reliable, consumer- and enterprise-ready products. Matching across specialized pillars occurs during the hiring process based on your technical strengths and interests—spanning Platform Intelligence, Agentic Systems, Developer Experience, Auth & Identity, Platform Distribution, Enterprise Foundations, and Platform Safety.

Key Hiring Pillars & Focus Areas

• Agentic Systems: Build production infrastructure, tool-use primitives, multi-step reasoning environments, and durable long-running execution frameworks for Claude Managed Agents.
• Platform Intelligence & Serving: Architect core inference serving paths, low-latency API delivery, and state-of-the-art context retrieval systems in direct collaboration with AI research teams.
• Platform Ecosystem (Founding 0 $\rightarrow$ 1): Build commercial rails, regulatory controls, and domain-specific API capabilities to scale Claude adoption into industries like Healthcare and Life Sciences.
• Enterprise Foundations & Distribution: Develop user and permission management, audit logging, compliance controls, and cloud-native deployment layers (cross-cloud and on-premise) that enable Fortune 500 deployments.
• Auth, Identity & Platform Safety: Build resilient identity, RBAC/SSO, KYC/KYB verification, and trust-grant systems that ensure safe model rollouts at planetary scale.

Key Responsibilities

• System Architecture & Leadership: Lead technical design, multi-month project scoping, and architectural decisions impacting the reliability, throughput, and security of systems serving hundreds of thousands of users.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Designers, Solutions Architects, GTM leads, and AI Researchers to bridge frontier model capabilities into shipped features.
• Hands-On Engineering: Drive production delivery by writing high-quality backend code, designing scalable REST/gRPC APIs, and extending cloud infrastructure across distributed systems.
• Operational Excellence: Establish defensive engineering processes, robust observability, and failure-mode analysis to ensure critical platform services remain fault-tolerant.
• Technical Mentorship: Actively mentor junior and mid-level engineers, conduct architectural reviews, and raise engineering standards across product teams.

Requirements

Engineering Depth & Track Record

• 8+ years of professional experience as a Backend or Product Engineer, with a track record as a Tech Lead or Staff Engineer guiding complex technical initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience architecting, shipping, and scaling large-scale backend microservices and APIs powering high-adoption B2B or consumer products.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud-native architecture (AWS/GCP/Azure), data modeling, and high-throughput API design.
• High proficiency in modern backend languages (Python, Go, Java, or Rust), with the flexibility to reach into frontend layers when necessary to unblock delivery.
• Excellent communication skills with a proven ability to build consensus and drive technical direction across non-technical and executive stakeholders.

Education & Work Logistics

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent practical experience/training) in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Ability to meet Anthropic's hybrid workplace policy (at least 25% time onsite in office).

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience building 0-to-1 platform capabilities or serving as a founding engineer for enterprise SaaS features.
• Domain experience in identity systems (Auth0, OAuth2, SAML, RBAC), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or agentic AI frameworks.
• Practical experience with multi-tenant cloud distribution, container orchestration (Kubernetes), and enterprise compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA).

Total Rewards & Benefits

• Compensation & Equity: Base salary of $405,000 – $485,000 USD + competitive equity package with optional equity donation matching.
• Healthcare & Family Support: Comprehensive health, vision, and dental coverage; generous paid parental leave.
• Time Off & Flexibility: Flexible working hours and generous PTO policy.
• Workplace & Perks: Collaborative research environment, office space in San Francisco, and full visa sponsorship support through external immigration counsel.