Lead, Data Center Security Delivery (Construction to Operations)

Anthropic$290K — $365K *
Real Estate & Construction
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience in security delivery for new-build data centers or similar critical infrastructure projects
  • Experience running milestone and commissioning acceptance processes
  • Proven ability to hold operators and contractors accountable to security obligations
  • Comfortable making critical decisions and providing actionable plans
  • Skilled at managing the complexities of multiple concurrent construction sites
  • Ability to create and modify requirements and standards that are adopted effectively
  • Strong influence skills to collaborate with various stakeholders and drive decision-making

Responsibilities

  • Own security delivery for all campus construction from start to handover.
  • Ensure construction-phase security including site protection, contractor vetting, and equipment safety.
  • Define and maintain security acceptance criteria for construction milestones.
  • Verify operational readiness before handover to ensure all security measures are in place.
  • Oversee the transition package and processes from construction to operational management.
  • Rewrite processes based on field experiences to improve security delivery standards.
  • Represent security interests in construction meetings and coordinate across teams.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to influence security processes on construction sites
  • Work in a cutting-edge environment with multiple concurrent data center projects
  • Be a key player in a mission-driven company focused on ethical AI
  • Flexible work arrangement with a hybrid policy
  • Possibility of visa sponsorship for qualified candidates
Full Job Description
About the role

Anthropic is building data center campuses at a pace where several are under construction at once, each moving through design, construction, commissioning, and turnover to an operating partner. Security scope on those projects (the physical protections, the systems that enforce them, and the operational readiness of the company that will run the site) has to be delivered as deliberately as the buildings themselves.

As Lead for Data Center Security Delivery, you will own security through that entire arc for every campus under construction: from groundbreaking, through construction-phase security, through commissioning and milestone acceptance, to a clean handover into full operation. You are the single point of accountability for "the site's security is actually ready", and you will verify that the operating partner has its people, processes, systems, and contractual security obligations genuinely in place before a site goes live.

This is a delivery role, not a watch-the-dashboard role. You'll absorb the day-to-day noise of active construction sites (schedule slips, design changes, vendor coordination, escalations) so the rest of DCSE can stay focused on steady-state operations and systems. And where DCSE's requirements or processes don't survive contact with a real construction schedule, you will have the authority, and the expectation, to rewrite them.

Role boundaries. This seat is distinct from DCSE's regional security operations leads and from the team's systems-engineering roles. The operations leads own steady-state regional programs (vendors, guard force, incident response) once a site is running; the systems roles build platforms and tooling. This role owns the delivery arc: every site's security scope from construction start through commissioning, acceptance, and handover, after which accountability transfers to operations.
Key responsibilities

You will own the security delivery program across every Anthropic campus under construction: concurrently, from groundbreaking to handover.
  • Construction-phase security delivery: temporary site security, contractor vetting and access, protection of installed equipment, and coordination with general contractors and site teams on every active build.
  • Milestone and commissioning acceptance: define and maintain the security acceptance criteria at each construction milestone and commissioning gate; run or attend acceptance events (FAT/SAT, punch lists); issue or withhold the security sign-off.
  • Operator readiness verification: build and run a structured, evidence-based readiness process proving the operating company is genuinely ready before handover: staffing and guard force in place, SOPs adopted, security systems commissioned and monitored, contractual security obligations demonstrably met.
  • Clean handover to operations: own the turnover package (as-builts, test records, credentials, punch-list closure, residual-risk register) and the defined transition from construction-phase to operational security ownership.
  • Requirements and process authority: rewrite DCSE's construction-security requirements, delivery processes, and acceptance frameworks where they fail in the field, and codify what works, so each build is cleaner than the last.
  • Representation and escalation: represent security in design reviews, owner-architect-contractor (OAC) meetings, and change management; coordinate integrators, general contractors, and operator counterparts on security system installation, testing, and commissioning; surface schedule and readiness risks early, with options, to DCSE leadership and cross-functional partners.
Minimum qualifications
  • Have personally delivered the physical security scope on new-build data center (or comparable critical-infrastructure) construction projects (design reviews through construction, commissioning, and turnover to operations) and can name the sites and your role on them.
  • Have run milestone- or commissioning-acceptance processes: FAT/SAT, punch lists, turnover documentation, formal sign-off.
  • Have held an operator, landlord, or vendor accountable to contractual security obligations, with evidence rather than assurances.
  • Are comfortable being the person who says "not ready", and can do it in a way that produces a plan rather than a standoff.
  • Can absorb the operational noise of multiple concurrent construction sites and still drive each one toward its handover date.
  • Can author requirements, standards, and process documents that get adopted, and are willing to rewrite your own when they fail in the field.
  • Work through influence with general contractors, integrators, operators, and internal partners; you shape decisions rather than block them.
Preferred qualifications
  • CPP (Certified Protection Professional) or PSP (Physical Security Professional) certification, or commissioning credentials.
  • Hyperscaler or major colocation new-build delivery experience.
  • Experience on both sides of an operator/tenant relationship.
  • Construction management or owner's-representative background.
  • Experience in regulated or high-assurance environments.


The annual compensation range for this role is listed below.

For sales roles, the range provided is the role's On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role.

Annual Salary:

$290,000-$365,000 USD

Logistics

Minimum education: Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience

Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience

Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position

Location-based hybrid policy: Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices.

Visa sponsorship: We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.

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. We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.

Your safety matters to us. To protect yourself from potential scams, remember that Anthropic recruiters only contact you from [redacted].com email addresses. In some cases, we may partner with vetted recruiting agencies who will identify themselves as working on behalf of Anthropic. Be cautious of emails from other domains. Legitimate Anthropic recruiters will never ask for money, fees, or banking information before your first day. If you're ever unsure about a communication, don't click any links-visit anthropic.com/careers directly for confirmed position openings.

About Anthropic

Anthropic is an artificial intelligence research lab that focuses on developing AI systems that are safe, reliable, and trustworthy. The company was founded in 2019 by Dr. Yoshua Bengio, a leading AI researcher and winner of the Turing Award. Anthropic's research is focused on developing AI systems that can learn from small amounts of data, reason about complex systems, and interact with humans in a natural way. The company is based in New York City and has a team of experienced AI researchers and engineers.
Learn more about Anthropic
Size
50 employees
Industry
Founded
2019

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