Applied AI Engineer, Startups (Physical AI)
Directly uses Claude and agentic coding to prototype AI-driven engineering workflows and integrations (e.g., Claude with CAD/simulation), so it's hands-on AI dev work for physical systems.
About the Role
Anthropic is hiring an Applied AI Engineer on the Startups team to advise and partner with AI-native startups building physical systems (robotics, semiconductors, aerospace, manufacturing, civil infrastructure). The role combines hands-on engineering, prototyping, architecture design, and technical advising to help startups integrate Claude and develop scalable AI-driven workflows from design and simulation through test and production.
Job Description
Role
As an Applied AI Engineer on the Startups team, you will act as a deep technical advisor and hands-on partner to AI-native startups building physical products and engineering workflows. You will help startups design, prototype, evaluate, and deploy systems that integrate Claude into design, simulation, testing, and operations, and produce repeatable reference implementations and technical resources.
Key Responsibilities
- Serve as a technical advisor to startups across robotics, semiconductors, aerospace, manufacturing, and civil infrastructure.
- Work hands-on with software and hardware teams via pair programming and architecture reviews to accelerate development and align guidance with real engineering workflows (design, simulation, test, production, operations).
- Develop prototypes, evaluation suites, benchmarks grounded in engineering tasks, architecture diagrams, and technical documentation.
- Create reference implementations and sample code for integrating Claude with CAD, simulation, design tools, or industrial automation.
- Collaborate with Applied AI Architects, Product, Engineering, Research, and Applied AI teams to maintain continuity and share insights.
- Identify cross-engagement patterns and hard engineering problems (e.g., reading drawings, 3D geometry, board layout and routing, GD&T, latency and on-prem constraints, physical safety) and build repeatable evaluations and solutions.
- Produce technical content for startup audiences (documentation, tutorials, sample code) and foster community engagement through hackathons, webinars, technical office hours, and events.
- Travel to customer sites for workshops, implementation guidance, and relationship building.
Requirements
- Deep engineering experience in physical disciplines (mechanical, electrical, aerospace, robotics, semiconductor, manufacturing, or civil engineering) gained by designing, building, or operating real hardware.
- 4+ years of technical experience as a software engineer, ML/research engineer, robotics/controls engineer, hardware/systems engineer, or technical founder.
- Production experience building LLM-powered applications or a track record applying AI to design, simulation, test, or production; familiarity with prompting, context engineering, agent architectures, evaluation frameworks, and deployments at scale.
- Experience with startups or high-growth companies and comfort working with founders and small, fast-moving teams.
- Strong technical communication skills and ability to translate AI concepts into architectural decisions and actionable plans for software and hardware audiences.
- Collaborative generalist mindset able to switch domains quickly and focus on safety and beneficial outcomes.
Logistics
- Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience.
- Minimum years of experience: aligned with internal job level requirements; posting specifies 4+ years as a guideline.
- Location-based hybrid policy: staff expected to be in one of Anthropic’s offices at least 25% of the time; some roles may require more office time.
- Visa sponsorship: Anthropic says they do sponsor visas and retain immigration counsel to assist where possible.
Compensation
- Annual salary range listed: $280,000 — $320,000 USD.