Manager of Applied AI Architecture, Startups
Building AI dev tools and LLM-powered systems with the Claude API; hands-on LLM work and context/eval engineering for rapid prototyping and production.
About the Role
Lead and grow a team of Applied AI Architects focused on driving adoption of Anthropic’s Claude Developer Platform among startups, personally engaging in high-priority pre-sales technical partnerships and defining playbooks for scalable LLM solutions. The role combines technical leadership, startup-facing pre-sales execution, and cross-functional influence to translate customer signals into product and engineering priorities.
Job Description
Role
As Manager of Startups Applied AI Architects, you will lead a team that helps startups build AI-native products using the Claude Developer Platform. You will set the vision and playbooks for technical partnership in the startup segment, personally lead strategic pre-sales engagements, and grow a high-performing team that operates at startup speed.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead, develop, and grow a team of Startups Applied AI Architects, setting standards for technical credibility and customer impact.
- Drive team performance through goal-setting, coaching, and continuous technical development.
- Personally lead pre-sales technical engagements from discovery through deployment and expansion for high-priority startup accounts.
- Build and own technical playbooks: run technical evaluations, develop customer-specific evaluation frameworks, and architect LLM solutions for resource-constrained teams.
- Partner with Account Executives and GTM leadership to shape segment strategy and drive Claude API adoption.
- Surface insights on startup usage patterns, deployment choices, and emerging use cases and translate them into actionable feedback for Product and Engineering.
- Influence cross-functional stakeholders across Sales, Product, and Engineering to advance startup customer needs and roadmap priorities.
- Represent Anthropic in the startup ecosystem via events, workshops, and content.
- Keep the team current on AI engineering trends (context engineering, eval frameworks, agentic architectures, developer tooling).
Requirements
- 8+ years in technical customer-facing roles (e.g., Solutions Architect, Sales Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer) with 5+ years managing pre-sales or technical go-to-market teams.
- Proven track record building and developing high-performing technical customer-facing teams (hiring, coaching, onboarding).
- Deep experience working with startups or high-growth technology companies and understanding their technical decision processes.
- Demonstrated builder credibility: built and deployed LLM-powered applications and can earn trust of technical founders and engineers.
- Hands-on expertise with context engineering, LLM evaluation frameworks, and modern AI architectures; comfortable guiding prototypes to production-grade systems.
- Comfortable with Python and fluent in common LLM frameworks, tools, and integration patterns used in startup engineering stacks.
- Strong communication skills and customer-facing experience; energized by ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
Strong Plus Qualifications
- Experience as a technical founder or working in founder-led sales motions.
- Track record winning technical evaluations against other LLM providers.
- Experience building foundational team infrastructure: hiring frameworks, onboarding, playbooks, and coaching systems.
- Visible technical presence in the startup or AI engineering community (talks, writing, open-source).
Compensation
- Annual salary range: $315,000 — $380,000 USD (listed for this role).
Logistics
- Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education/training/experience.
- Location policy: location-based hybrid policy; staff expected to be in an office at least 25% of the time.
- Visa sponsorship: Anthropic states it does sponsor visas and provides immigration support in many cases.