Senior+ Software Engineer, Research Tools

Anthropic•San Francisco, CA

45d•$300,000 - $405,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Anthropic's research teams are pushing the boundaries of AI safety and capability research, and they need exceptional tools to do their best work. As a Software Engineer on the Research Tools team, you'll build the infrastructure and applications that enable our researchers to iterate quickly, run complex experiments, and extract insights from frontier AI systems. This role sits at the intersection of product thinking and full-stack engineering. You'll work directly with researchers and engineers to deeply understand their workflows, identify bottlenecks, and rapidly ship solutions that multiply their productivity. Whether you're building human feedback interfaces for model evaluation, creating platforms for experiment orchestration, or developing novel visualization tools for understanding model behavior, your work will directly accelerate our mission to build safe, reliable AI systems. We're looking for someone who can operate with high agency in an ambiguous environment-someone who can be dropped into a research team, quickly develop domain expertise, and independently drive impactful projects from conception to delivery. No ML or Research experience is required

Requirements

Have 5+ years of software engineering experience with a strong focus on full-stack development
Excel at rapid iteration and shipping-you can move from concept to working prototype quickly
Have experience building tools, platforms, or infrastructure for technical users (engineers, researchers, data scientists, analysts, etc.)
Demonstrate high agency and ability to operate independently in ambiguous environments
Can quickly develop deep understanding of complex technical domains
Have strong product instincts and can identify the right problems to solve
Are proficient with modern web technologies (React, TypeScript, Python, etc.)
Have a track record of building user-facing applications that are actually used and loved by their target audience
Communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Care about the societal impacts of your work and are motivated by Anthropic's mission

Nice To Haves

Experience building research tools, scientific software, or experimentation platforms
Background in machine learning, AI research, or working closely with ML researchers
Founded or been an early engineer at a startup, particularly one focused on developer or researcher tools
Built open-source tools or platforms with active user communities
Experience with data visualization, interactive interfaces, or novel interaction paradigms
Contributed to engineering platforms or internal tooling at scale (similar to Heroku, Vercel, or other platform-as-a-service products)
Experience leveraging AI/LLMs to build more powerful or efficient tools
Previous work in creative tools, artist tools, or other domains requiring deep user empathy
Domain knowledge in areas like human-computer interaction, systems safety, or AI alignment

Responsibilities

Build and maintain full-stack applications and infrastructure that researchers use daily to conduct experiments, collect feedback, and analyze results
Partner closely with research teams to understand their workflows, pain points, and requirements, translating these into technical solutions
Design intuitive interfaces and abstractions that make complex research tasks accessible and efficient
Create reusable platforms and tools that accelerate the development of new research applications
Rapidly prototype and iterate on solutions, gathering feedback from users and refining based on real-world usage
Take ownership of complete product areas, from understanding user needs through design, implementation, and ongoing iteration
Contribute to technical strategy and architectural decisions for research tooling
Mentor other engineers and help establish best practices for research application development