Staff+ Software Engineer, Databases

Postgres, MySQL
UNITED STATES
October 23, 2026
Full Time
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Job Description

Company: Anthropic
Location: New York, NY
Workplace Type: Hybrid
Employment Type: Full-time
Pay / Compensation: $320,000—$485,000 USD

About the Role

Anthropic is seeking experienced engineers to build and scale the database infrastructure powering Claude’s products and frontier AI research. As a Staff+ Software Engineer on the Databases team, you will architect, operate, and optimize storage systems that handle billions of API requests while supporting massive data growth across multi-cloud environments (GCP, AWS, and first/third-party deployments).

What You’ll Do / Key Responsibilities

  • Technical Strategy: Drive the technical direction for database solutions used across Product and Research teams.
  • System Architecture & Scaling: Design and implement database solutions that scale to support millions of users, supporting 100x+ data growth while maintaining high availability and reliability.
  • Platform Engineering: Build and maintain the database platform (data plane and control plane) to enable product and research engineers to ship seamlessly without worrying about database scaling.
  • Multi-Cloud Operations: Architect data storage solutions operating across GCP, AWS, and custom deployment models.
  • Data Movement & CDC: Develop robust data movement infrastructure, including migration tooling, backfill processes, and Change Data Capture (CDC) pipelines.
  • Caching Infrastructure: Design and operate caching layers, including CDC-driven cache invalidation to optimize high-throughput, low-latency paths.
  • Performance Optimization: Optimize database performance, engine tuning, query reliability, and infrastructure cost efficiency at scale.

Requirements & Qualifications

  • Production Experience: Significant software engineering background building and operating production database or distributed storage systems.
  • Database Expertise: Deep knowledge of distributed database architectures, OLTP systems, and proficiency in SQL alongside core open-source relational engines (PostgreSQL, MySQL) or distributed databases (CockroachDB, Spanner, DynamoDB).
  • Technical Leadership: Proven track record leading large, complex infrastructure initiatives as a tech lead or senior/staff engineer.
  • Operational Reliability: Strong ability to balance rapid deployment with strict production reliability and performance requirements.
  • Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).

Preferred / Bonus Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience building and scaling high-growth database infrastructure, with 3+ years leading complex technical projects or engineering teams.
  • Distributed SQL Experience: Direct experience operating Spanner, CockroachDB, TiDB, or AlloyDB in large-scale production environments.
  • Ecosystem Tools: Experience with Redis, Temporal, vector databases, async job processing, or streaming technologies (e.g., Debezium).
  • Open-Source Contributions: Contributions to open-source database internals, storage engines, or database orchestration/automation tooling.

Benefits & Perks

  • Flexible Work Culture: Hybrid work policy requiring 25% office attendance in San Francisco or New York.
  • Comprehensive Support: Competitive base compensation, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation, and parental leave.
  • Visa Sponsorship: Full visa sponsorship assistance available.

Anthropic is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Public Benefit Corporation.

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