Staff + Software Security Engineer

This role focuses on building and operating security foundations used across Anthropic. You will lead end-to-end security services from threat modeling through production adoption, with a focus on authorization, mTLS, and workload identity to reduce vulnerability classes.

Responsibilities

• Build critical security foundations, including cryptographic frameworks, mTLS infrastructure, secure serialization, and authorization systems, with designs intended to prevent entire classes of vulnerabilities.
• Partner with product, research, infrastructure, and other security teams to ensure frameworks integrate smoothly with lower-layer security controls.
• Scope, design, and build security services and libraries end-to-end, maintain them in production, and drive resolution of ambiguous technical problems with minimal oversight.
• Build and operate the zero-trust access gateway that fronts Anthropic’s internal services.
• Design and roll out authorization frameworks so services enforce least privilege consistently instead of each team implementing access controls independently.
• Own cryptographic frameworks and libraries.
• Mentor engineers, contribute to hiring, and help grow a security engineering culture across Anthropic.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience building security-relevant systems in production, including leading complex initiatives independently.
• Strong programming skills in Go, Rust, or Python.
• Deep understanding of authentication and authorization systems, including OAuth 2.0 / OIDC, JWTs, service-to-service authentication, and policy-based access control.
• Hands-on experience with PKI, X.509, mTLS, and workload identity.
• Working knowledge of applied cryptography, including choosing and composing cryptographic primitives correctly, key management, and common library failure modes.
• Experience shipping and operating high-reliability services on Kubernetes across cloud and on-prem environments, including being on call.
• A track record of bringing clarity and ownership to ambiguous technical problems and driving them to resolution across teams.
• A strong sense of developer experience.
• Clear communication across all levels of the organization.
• Passion for AI safety and the role security engineering plays in building trustworthy AI systems.

Technologies

• Go, Rust, Python
• OAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWTs
• PKI, X.509, mTLS
• Kubernetes

Preferred Qualifications

• Built security frameworks or libraries adopted across an engineering organization, including driving adoption.
• Built or operated a zero-trust or BeyondCorp-style access gateway, or an identity-aware proxy.
• Migrated a fleet to mTLS at scale, including certificate issuance and staged enforcement.
• Maintained or contributed to open-source cryptographic libraries.
• Designed authorization systems using policy languages or relationship-based models.
• Familiarity with ML infrastructure, including training and inference serving.

Education

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

Logistics

• Location: San Francisco, CA (hybrid)
• Hybrid policy: Expected to be in one of Anthropic’s offices at least 25% of the time, though some roles may require more.
• Visa sponsorship: Visa sponsorship is available; successful sponsorship depends on role and candidate specifics. If an offer is made, Anthropic will make reasonable efforts to support the visa process and has an immigration lawyer available.
• Salary: USD 32,000 - 485,000 per year