Senior Staff Software Engineer, API

Location: San Francisco, CA or New York City, NY; hybrid attendance required in an office at least 25% of the time. Preference is given to candidates based in New York or the San Francisco Bay Area.

Annual salary: $405,000–$485,000 USD

Company

Anthropic develops reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems intended to be safe and beneficial for users and society.

What you will do

• Define and drive multi-year technical strategy for the Claude API across API Core, Capabilities, Knowledge, Distributability, and Agents.
• Lead the highest-complexity, highest-impact engineering initiatives spanning multiple teams.
• Make major architectural decisions with organization-wide scope.
• Partner with Research, Inference, Platform, Infrastructure, and Safeguards to deliver reliable, secure, and responsible API capabilities at scale.
• Mentor and develop Staff-level engineers and drive alignment across Product, GTM, Safety, and other stakeholders.

Requirements

• 12+ years of engineering experience with a track record at Staff or Senior Staff level.
• Experience shaping technical strategy for large-scale API or distributed systems platforms.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems and API architecture, including design documentation, architectural decision-making, and coding in critical paths.
• Strong cross-functional communication and collaboration skills across technical and business organizations.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent education, training, or experience in a relevant field.
• Ability to work from the San Francisco or New York office at least 25% of the time; visa sponsorship is available when feasible.

Nice to have

• Strong product instincts and a craftsperson’s approach to API design.
• Experience integrating frontier AI capabilities such as vision, tool use, or computer use.

Culture & Benefits

• Collaborative environment focused on large-scale AI research and trustworthy, steerable systems.
• Competitive compensation with optional equity donation matching.
• Generous vacation and parental leave.
• Flexible working hours and office-based collaboration.
• Immigration lawyer support for sponsored visa applications.