Software Engineer, Labs

Anthropic • $320K — $485K *
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of experience building full-stack applications in startup or similar environments
  • Strong technical skills in modern web development stacks (React, Node.js, Python)
  • Ability to thrive in ambiguous situations and adapt to changing priorities
  • User-centric mindset with a focus on validating ideas with users
  • Skills in effectively communicating complex AI capabilities into user-friendly experiences

Responsibilities

  • Prototype full-stack applications that demonstrate emerging AI technologies
  • Collaborate with researchers to translate model capabilities into user experiences
  • Gather feedback from internal users and external partners to refine product concepts
  • Design structured experiments to test product hypotheses
  • Generate documentation and insights to steer prototypes towards development
  • Advocate for user experience considerations early in research phases
  • Provide constructive feedback to research teams on model effectiveness

Benefits

  • Flexible work hours and location-based hybrid policy
  • Generous vacation and parental leave
  • Equity and bonus opportunities
  • Support for visa sponsorship
  • Encouragement of diverse candidate backgrounds and perspectives
Full Job Description
About the role

At Anthropic, we're building AI systems that are safe, beneficial, and transformative. Our mission is to develop AI that benefits humanity, and we believe the most powerful capabilities emerge when we thoughtfully bridge the gap between research breakthroughs and real-world applications.

Anthropic Labs serves as our internal accelerator. We're looking for the next breakout hits that bring substantial revenue or transform an industry. We operate in close partnership with research and build through fast iteration cycles. Past successes include Claude Code and MCP.

We're seeking versatile, entrepreneurial engineers to join Labs. In this role, you'll work at the intersection of cutting-edge research and real-world application, rapidly building and testing new experiences, working directly with researchers and users, and generating the insights that shape Anthropic's product future. 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.
Responsibilities
  • Rapidly prototype full-stack applications that showcase emerging AI capabilities, shipping early and often to maximize learning
  • Collaborate closely with research teams to understand new model capabilities and translate them into intuitive user experiences
  • Work directly with internal test users and external partners to gather feedback, iterate quickly, and validate (or invalidate) product concepts
  • Design and run structured experiments to test hypotheses, balancing creative exploration with rigorous evaluation
  • Generate documentation and insights to guide successful prototypes toward full product teams
  • Advocate for user experience and product considerations early in the research process
  • Provide feedback to research teams about model effectiveness and where capabilities can be improved
  • Flexibly contribute across Labs initiatives based on organizational priorities and emerging opportunities-context from one project should inform the next
You may be a good fit if you
  • 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
  • Are deeply user-centric-you validate ideas with actual users before over-investing and talk about problems before solutions
  • 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 a generalist who can transition between different problem spaces as priorities shift
  • Work independently with good judgment about what matters, without needing constant direction
  • Have strong technical skills across modern web development stacks (React, Node.js, Python, etc.) and are comfortable with APIs, databases, and cloud technologies
  • Communicate effectively and translate complex AI capabilities into intuitive experiences
  • Care about the societal impacts and ethics of your work
Strong candidates may also have
  • Experience building products that involve AI/ML components or working with large language models
  • Experience collaborating directly with research teams in AI/ML environments
  • Background conducting user research, interviews, and usability testing
  • Experience across both B2B and B2C product development, or in multiple industries
  • Design sensibility or hands-on experience with UI/UX for AI-powered applications
  • Experience with real-time applications, WebSocket implementations, or complex frontend interactions
What we're not looking for at this stage
  • Deep specialists who can't adapt if their domain becomes irrelevant
  • Engineers who've only succeeded in big-company structures with well-defined processes and long timelines
  • People who are precious about their work or frame all past projects as successes
  • Those who need clear roadmaps and get stressed by shifting priorities
Candidates need not have
  • 100% of the skills listed above
  • Formal certifications or education credentials
  • Direct machine learning or AI research experience

Deadline to apply: None. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

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:

$320,000-$485,000 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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