Software Engineer

Staff+ Software Engineer, Privacy – Visa Sponsorship Available

Job Overview

Anthropic is hiring a Staff+ Software Engineer, Privacy to help build privacy-preserving infrastructure for advanced AI systems.

This is a senior-level individual contributor role focused on privacy engineering, AI safety, distributed systems, data governance, and privacy-enhancing technologies.

The successful candidate will help establish Anthropic’s privacy engineering function and influence how privacy is designed into AI systems from the ground up.

Job Details

Visa Sponsorship Available

Yes – Anthropic states that it sponsors visas.

However, sponsorship is not guaranteed for every position or candidate. Anthropic explains that when it makes an offer, it will make every reasonable effort to obtain a visa and provides immigration-lawyer support.

This makes the position potentially attractive to qualified international candidates, although applicants should verify that their individual circumstances and the specific role are eligible for sponsorship.

About Anthropic

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company focused on creating reliable, interpretable and steerable AI systems.

The company brings together researchers, engineers, policy experts and business leaders to develop AI systems designed to be safe and beneficial to users and society.

For this position, privacy is considered a fundamental part of AI safety because Anthropic’s systems handle sensitive information at very large scale.

About the Role

As one of Anthropic’s early dedicated privacy engineers, you will help establish and shape the company’s privacy engineering function.

You will work within the Data Infrastructure team, designing privacy-preserving systems, implementing privacy-enhancing technologies and providing technical leadership across engineering, research and product teams.

The position sits at the intersection of:

• Privacy engineering
• Artificial intelligence
• AI safety
• Distributed systems
• Data infrastructure
• Data governance
• Regulatory compliance

This is a high-autonomy role with broad technical influence.

Key Responsibilities

As a Staff+ Software Engineer, Privacy, you will:

• Design and implement privacy-preserving architectures for large-scale AI training and inference systems.
• Apply technologies such as differential privacy, federated learning and secure multi-party computation.
• Work with researchers to implement privacy-preserving training techniques.
• Build foundational privacy infrastructure for data discovery and classification.
• Develop access controls, audit logging and data lifecycle management systems.
• Translate privacy regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and the EU AI Act into technical implementations.
• Architect data governance systems covering data lineage, purpose limitation and retention.
• Lead privacy reviews and threat modeling for new models and product features.
• Identify privacy risks and develop scalable technical mitigations.
• Work with product and infrastructure teams to embed privacy controls into AI inference systems and data pipelines.
• Develop privacy engineering frameworks and toolkits.
• Help engineers build privacy-preserving features by default.
• Design privacy-preserving analytics and measurement systems.
• Evaluate emerging privacy technologies from academia and industry.
• Contribute to open-source privacy tooling and AI privacy standards.
• Advocate for privacy as a core component of AI safety.

Minimum Qualifications

Applicants should have experience with:

• Privacy engineering principles in production systems.
• Privacy by design, data minimization and purpose limitation.
• Python, Go or similar programming languages.
• Building and operating production systems at scale.
• Designing privacy infrastructure for systems with large user bases.
• Data governance, data classification or data lifecycle management.
• Privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.
• Translating legal and regulatory requirements into technical designs.
• Privacy reviews, threat modeling or risk assessments.
• Communicating effectively across engineering, research, legal and product teams.

Preferred Qualifications

Additional experience that may strengthen your application includes:

• Hands-on experience with privacy-enhancing technologies.
• Differential privacy.
• Homomorphic encryption.
• Secure enclaves.
• Secure multi-party computation.
• Privacy infrastructure for machine learning or AI systems.
• Establishing a privacy engineering function.
• Working as an early technical hire in a new function.
• Distributed systems and large-scale cloud infrastructure.
• Technical leadership of complex, multi-quarter projects.
• Contributions to open-source privacy tools or research.
• Contributions to industry privacy standards.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including large-scale infrastructure.
• 3+ years leading large and complex projects as a technical lead.

Salary and Compensation

The advertised annual salary range is:

US$405,000 – US$485,000 per year

The compensation package may also include additional benefits and other forms of compensation.

Anthropic states that it offers competitive compensation and benefits, along with optional equity donation matching.

Education Requirements

Minimum Education

A Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training and/or professional experience.

Required Field of Study

A field relevant to the position, demonstrated through coursework, professional training or practical experience.

Work Arrangement

Anthropic currently expects staff to work from one of its offices at least 25% of the time.

Some positions may require more frequent office attendance depending on the responsibilities of the role.

Applicants should confirm the applicable working arrangement during the recruitment process.

Why Consider This Opportunity?

This role could be particularly attractive to experienced software engineers interested in the intersection of:

• AI and machine learning
• Privacy engineering
• Cybersecurity
• Distributed systems
• Data infrastructure
• AI safety
• Regulatory technology

The position also offers the opportunity to help establish a privacy engineering function at a company working on frontier AI systems.

About Anthropic’s Work Culture

Anthropic describes its research approach as highly collaborative, with teams working together on major research efforts rather than isolated projects.

The company places strong emphasis on:

• Collaboration
• Technical impact
• Communication
• AI safety
• Trustworthy AI
• Long-term research goals

Anthropic also encourages candidates to apply even if they do not meet every qualification listed.

Benefits

Anthropic states that it offers:

• Competitive compensation
• Competitive benefits
• Optional equity donation matching
• Generous vacation leave
• Parental leave
• Flexible working hours
• Collaborative office environment

Important Visa Sponsorship Information

Anthropic explicitly states:

“We do sponsor visas!”

However, sponsorship is not available for every role or every candidate.

If Anthropic makes an offer, the company says it will make every reasonable effort to obtain the appropriate visa and has an immigration lawyer available to assist with the process.

International applicants should therefore carefully review their eligibility and confirm sponsorship arrangements directly with Anthropic during recruitment.

Applicant Safety Warning

Applicants should be cautious of recruitment scams.

Anthropic states that its recruiters contact candidates from @anthropic.com email addresses. In some circumstances, the company may work with vetted recruitment agencies that identify themselves as acting on Anthropic’s behalf.

Legitimate recruiters will not ask applicants for money, recruitment fees or banking information before their first day.

If you receive a suspicious communication, verify the vacancy through Anthropic’s official careers channels rather than clicking unknown links.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should apply through the official Anthropic careers platform and search for:

Staff+ Software Engineer, Privacy

Before submitting your application:

1. Review the role requirements carefully.
2. Ensure your CV highlights large-scale software engineering experience.
3. Emphasize privacy engineering, AI, distributed systems or data infrastructure experience where applicable.
4. Highlight technical leadership and major projects.
5. Clearly demonstrate experience with privacy, data governance and regulatory requirements.
6. If you require visa sponsorship, confirm your circumstances during the recruitment process.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this job offer visa sponsorship?

Yes. Anthropic states that it sponsors visas, although sponsorship is not guaranteed for every role or candidate.

What is the salary for the Staff+ Software Engineer, Privacy role?

The advertised annual salary range is US$405,000 to US$485,000.

Is this a senior-level position?

Yes. This is a Staff+ senior individual contributor position with significant technical responsibility and autonomy.

How much software engineering experience is preferred?

The preferred qualifications include 12+ years of software engineering experience, including experience building and operating large-scale infrastructure.

Is technical leadership experience required?

The preferred qualifications include 3+ years leading large, complex projects as a technical lead.

What programming languages are relevant?

The minimum qualifications mention Python, Go or similar programming languages.

What privacy technologies are relevant?

Relevant technologies include differential privacy, federated learning, secure multi-party computation, homomorphic encryption and secure enclaves.

Does the role involve AI?

Yes. The position focuses heavily on privacy for AI training, inference, data pipelines and AI infrastructure.

Is a degree required?

The listed minimum education requirement is a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education, training and/or experience.

Final Note

This is a highly senior privacy engineering opportunity aimed at experienced software engineers who can operate at the intersection of AI, privacy, infrastructure and security.

Candidates should carefully review the official vacancy and verify the location, sponsorship eligibility, compensation and employment requirements before applying.

Salary: US$405,000 – US$485,000/year
Visa Sponsorship: Available, subject to role and candidate eligibility