Staff+ Software Engineer, VectorDB
Anthropic · New York City, NY | Seattle, WA; San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA
About this role
## Staff+ Software Engineer — VectorDB ### About Anthropic Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems—safe and beneficial for users and society. ### About the role Anthropic is looking for a **Staff+ Software Engineer** to build the **vector search infrastructure behind Claude**. Retrieval is how Claude learns about the world, and it depends on **fast, cheap, high-recall nearest-neighbor search over billions of vectors**. You’ll join a **small, core team** responsible for the **vector database layer** that powers Claude’s retrieval workloads—covering **architecture, performance, scalability, and cost**. This is a foundational role where early architectural decisions will shape how the system evolves. The role sits in the **Databases** organization and works closely with: - **Search Platform** (web search indexing, retrieval, serving) - **Memory & Search** (search and memory inside claude.ai) ### Key responsibilities - Own the core of Anthropic’s **vector database layer**: index structures, storage layout, query execution, and serving - Drive **production readiness**: benchmarking vs. exact search, capacity planning, onboarding new workloads, and operational tooling - Optimize **recall, latency, and cost trade-offs** (e.g., quantization, filtered search, index build/refresh strategy, compute/storage separation) - Scale throughput by an order of magnitude as demand grows; identify bottlenecks (architecture, hardware, or engineering bandwidth) - Extend toward **hybrid retrieval** (lexical search + fused ranking alongside vector search) - Define **evaluation methodology** (recall targets, latency objectives, cost/query, regression detection) - Set technical direction for a growing team (design reviews, architectural decisions, mentorship) - Participate in the **on-call** for systems you own ### Minimum qualifications - Built a **vector database** or **ANN search** system that ran in production at scale with real users and real on-call - Deep knowledge of **ANN index structures** (graph-based, clustering-based, disk-resident), **vector quantization**, and **filtered search** - Experience with **search relevance and ranking** - Strong systems programming skills in **Rust, C++, or Go** (performance- and memory-critical code) - Experience operating **large-scale distributed storage/serving** with strict latency and reliability requirements - Ability to independently scope and deliver ambiguous, multi-quarter projects - Strong written/verbal communication and cross-team alignment - Interest in **AI safety** and Anthropic’s mission ### Preferred qualifications - Object-storage-backed or disaggregated compute/storage database designs - Experience building/operating full-text search engines (inverted indexes, BM25) or hybrid retrieval systems - Familiarity with embedding models and LLM retrieval demands - Experience using **GPUs/accelerators** for index build or search - Prior technical lead experience on database/search infrastructure ### Compensation (annual) **$320,000 — $485,000 USD** ### Logistics - **Minimum education:** Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education/training/experience - **Required field of study:** Relevant to the role (via coursework, training, or experience) - **Location-based hybrid policy:** Expect to be in an office at least **25%** of the time (some roles may require more) - **Visa sponsorship:** Yes—Anthropic makes reasonable efforts to support visas when pos
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