Staff+ Software Engineer, Databases

Anthropic•Seattle, WA

7d•$320,000 - $485,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Anthropic is seeking experienced engineers to build and scale the database infrastructure that powers Claude's products and Anthropic's research. As a Software Engineer on the Databases team, you will architect and operate the systems that enable millions of users to interact with Claude, while also supporting frontier AI research workloads. You will help set the database strategy for Anthropic by designing systems that handle billions of API requests, building storage that operates across GCP, AWS, and various deployment models, and creating a reliable data layer that facilitates rapid research progress. The Databases team focuses on three key areas: the core database platform (data plane and control plane), data movement (migrations, backfill, and change data capture), and caching. Hiring is open across all three areas.

Requirements

Significant experience as a software engineer building and operating production database or storage 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)
Track record of leading large, complex infrastructure projects as an engineer or tech lead
Ability to balance moving quickly with the reliability needs of production systems
Strong technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills

Nice To Haves

10+ years building and scaling database systems, with 3+ years leading large-scale projects or teams
Experience scaling databases through periods of rapid growth at high-growth companies
Experience operating Spanner, CockroachDB, TiDB, AlloyDB, or other globally distributed SQL databases in production
Experience with Redis, Temporal, vector databases, or async job processing frameworks
Experience with change data capture (Debezium or similar), large-scale data migration, or streaming data infrastructure
Experience building multi-cloud or hybrid cloud database solutions
Knowledge of database orchestration and automation at scale
Contributions to database internals, storage engines, or related open source projects

Responsibilities

Drive the technical direction for database solutions used across Product and Research
Design and implement database solutions that scale to support millions of users across Claude's product ecosystem
Build and scale database systems through 100x+ growth while maintaining reliability and performance
Build the database platform that lets Anthropic engineers ship without thinking about databases or scaling
Architect data storage solutions that operate across GCP, AWS, first-party deployments, third-party deployments, and other environments
Develop database infrastructure that serves both product and research workloads with different performance characteristics
Build data movement infrastructure (migration tooling, backfill, and change data capture pipelines) that safely consolidates and moves data across the organization
Design and operate caching infrastructure, including CDC-driven cache invalidation, that keeps Anthropic's hottest paths fast and correct
Partner with product and research teams to understand data requirements and build infrastructure that accelerates their work
Optimize database performance, reliability, and cost efficiency at scale
Make build-vs-buy decisions for database technologies