Research Engineer, Economic Research
Anthropic · San Francisco, CA
- On site
- Full-time
- $375,000 / year
- San Francisco, CA
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Job highlights
- Build AI economic impact research infrastructure.
- Develop scalable data pipelines and privacy tools.
- Collaborate with cross-functional research teams.
- Design novel data systems for AI research.
- Ensure data reliability and compliance.
About the role
About Anthropic
Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.About The Role
As a Research Engineer on the Economic Research team, you will design, build, maintain critical infrastructure that powers Anthropic's research on AI's economic impact. You will work with data systems from across Anthropic, including our research tools for privacy-preserving analysis. The Economic Research team at Anthropic studies the economic implications of AI on individual, firm, and economy-wide outcomes. We build scalable systems to monitor AI usage patterns and directly measure the impact of AI adoption on real-world outcomes. We publish research and data that is clear-eyed about the economic effects of AI to help policymakers, businesses, and the public understand and navigate the transition to powerful AI. We use our insights to inform Anthropic decisions internally across the business. In this role, you will work closely with teams across Anthropic—including Data Science and Analytics, Data Infrastructure, Societal Impacts, and Public Policy—to build scalable and robust data systems that support high-leverage, high-impact research. Strong candidates will have a track record building data processing pipelines, architecting & implementing high-quality internal infrastructure, working in a fast-paced startup environment, navigating ambiguity, and demonstrating an eagerness to develop their own research & technical skills.Responsibilities
- Build and maintain data pipelines that process large scale Claude usage logs into canonical, reusable datasets while maintaining user privacy.
- Expand privacy-preserving tools to enable new analytic functionality to support research needs.
- Design and implement novel data systems leveraging language models (e.g., CLIO) where traditional software engineering patterns don't yet exist.
- Develop and maintain data pipelines that are interoperable across data sources (including ingesting external data) and are designed to support economic analysis.
- Contribute to the strategic development of the economic research data foundations roadmap.
- Ensure data reliability, integrity, and privacy compliance across all economic research data infrastructure.
- Lead technical design discussions to ensure our infrastructure can support both current needs and future research directions.
- Create documentation and best practices that enable self-serve data access for researchers while maintaining security and governance standards.
- Partner closely with researchers, data scientists, policy experts, and other cross-functional partners to advance Anthropic’s safety mission.
You Might Be a Good Fit If You Have
- Have experience working with Research Scientists and Economists on ambiguous AI and economic projects.
- Have experience with building and maintaining data infrastructure, large datasets, and internal tools in production environments.
- Have experience with cloud infrastructure platforms such as AWS or GCP.
- Take pride in writing clean, well-documented code in Python that others can build upon.
- Are comfortable making technical decisions with incomplete information while maintaining high engineering standards.
- Are comfortable getting up-to-speed quickly on unfamiliar codebases, and can work well with other engineers with different backgrounds across the organization.
- Have a track record of using technical infrastructure to interface effectively with machine learning models.
- Have experience deriving insights from imperfect data streams.
- Have experience building systems and products on top of LLMs.
- Have experience incubating and maturing tooling platforms used by a wide variety of stakeholders.
- A passion for Anthropic's mission of building helpful, honest, and harmless AI and understanding its economic implications.
- A “full-stack mindset”, not hesitating to do what it takes to solve a problem end-to-end, even if it requires going outside the original job description.
- Strong communication skills to collaborate effectively with economists, researchers, and cross-functional partners who may have varying levels of technical expertise.
Strong Candidates May Have
- Background in econometrics, statistics, or quantitative social science research.
- Experience building data infrastructure and data foundations for research.
- Familiarity with large language models, AI systems, or ML research workflows.
- Prior work on projects related to labor economics, technology adoption, or economic measurement.
Some Examples of Our Recent Work
- Anthropic Economic Index Report: Economic Primitives
- Anthropic Economic Index Report: Uneven Geographic and Enterprise AI Adoption
- Estimating AI productivity gains from Claude conversations
- The Anthropic Economic Index
Key skills/competency
- Python
- Data Pipelines
- Cloud Infrastructure (AWS/GCP)
- LLM Systems
- Data Infrastructure
- Economic Research
- AI Ethics
- Scalable Systems
- Privacy-Preserving Analysis
- ML Models
Skills & topics
- Research Engineer
- Economic Research
- Python
- Data Pipelines
- Cloud Infrastructure
- LLM
- AI
- Data Science
- Software Engineering
- AWS
- GCP
- Machine Learning
- Data Infrastructure
- Privacy
- Anthropic
How to get hired
- Tailor your resume: Highlight Python, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure experience relevant to AI economic research.
- Showcase LLM experience: Emphasize projects involving building systems on top of Large Language Models (LLMs).
- Demonstrate research collaboration: Provide examples of working with economists and researchers on complex projects.
- Highlight problem-solving: Share instances where you navigated ambiguity and maintained high engineering standards.
- Express mission alignment: Clearly articulate your passion for Anthropic's AI safety and economic impact mission.
Technical preparation
Master Python for data processing and pipelines.,Build and deploy cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP).,Develop systems that interface with ML models.,Implement privacy-preserving data analysis techniques.
Behavioral questions
Describe a complex, ambiguous research project you led.,How do you ensure code quality and documentation?,Share an experience building systems on top of LLMs.,How do you collaborate with non-technical experts?
Frequently asked questions
- What are the key responsibilities for a Research Engineer at Anthropic's Economic Research team?
- As a Research Engineer on the Economic Research team at Anthropic, you will be responsible for designing, building, and maintaining critical infrastructure that supports research on AI's economic impact. This includes developing data pipelines, expanding privacy-preserving tools, creating novel data systems leveraging language models, and ensuring data reliability and compliance.
- What specific technical skills are most important for this Research Engineer role at Anthropic?
- Strong candidates for this Research Engineer position at Anthropic should have experience with Python, building and maintaining data infrastructure and pipelines, cloud platforms like AWS or GCP, and working with large datasets. Experience with LLM systems and privacy-preserving analysis is also highly valued.
- How does Anthropic ensure user privacy in its economic research data infrastructure?
- Anthropic prioritizes user privacy by building data pipelines that process usage logs into canonical, reusable datasets while maintaining strict privacy controls. They also work on expanding privacy-preserving tools to enable new analytic functionalities for research needs.
- What kind of collaboration can I expect as a Research Engineer at Anthropic?
- As a Research Engineer at Anthropic, you will collaborate closely with teams across the organization, including Data Science and Analytics, Data Infrastructure, Societal Impacts, and Public Policy. You'll also partner with researchers, data scientists, and policy experts to advance Anthropic's safety mission.
- What is Anthropic's approach to AI research and its economic implications?
- Anthropic's approach to AI research focuses on creating reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems that are safe and beneficial. The Economic Research team specifically studies the economic implications of AI, building systems to measure its impact and publishing clear-eyed data to inform policymakers, businesses, and the public.
- Does Anthropic offer visa sponsorship for international candidates for the Research Engineer role?
- Yes, Anthropic does sponsor visas for eligible candidates. While they cannot guarantee sponsorship for every role or candidate, they make every reasonable effort to secure necessary visas for those who receive an offer and retain an immigration lawyer to assist.