Community Engagement Manager, Data Centers (Virginia & West Virginia)

EngineersOfAI; Virginia; On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Anthropic is seeking a Community Engagement Manager to serve as a local presence in Virginia and West Virginia, bridging Policy and Infrastructure teams with governments, communities, and stakeholders. You will surface concerns, translate technical plans into local benefits, and help build coalitions for responsible site development.

The role requires travel up to 50% within Virginia and West Virginia and occasional nationwide travel, with a focus on early-stage site selection through long-term

Qualifications

• Experience in community affairs, public affairs, economic development, government relations, local or state government, or a closely related field.
• Direct experience working for or engaging with local governments and a broad set of community stakeholders on behalf of large infrastructure, construction, energy, or technology projects, with a working understanding of how local politics and community dynamics actually operate.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain trusted, sustained relationships with boards, councils, planning commissions, county and municipal officials, state economic development agencies, and community groups in Virginia and West Virginia.
• Develop and execute a community engagement strategy for market sites, spanning site selection, pre-development, construction, and ongoing operations.
• Build external coalitions, host education and listening sessions, and design local solutions that deliver real benefits to the communities where we operate.
• Represent Anthropic in public forums, town halls, planning hearings, community events, and local media.
• Monitor community sentiment and local political dynamics; advise internal teams on risks, opportunities, and engagement pace.
• Partner with Real Estate and Infrastructure to bring community input into planning and delivery of projects.
• Work with Communications to develop proactive, locally relevant messaging.
• Coordinate charitable giving, community investment, and economic development commitments in markets.
• Explain environmental stewardship approaches and respond to questions about power, water, noise, transmission, and land use.
• Build a community engagement playbook and scalable processes for future expansion.

Skills

Community affairs

Public affairs

Job description

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

Anthropic is building AI systems that will shape the trajectory of one of the most consequential technologies in human history. That work requires physical infrastructure at significant scale, and building that infrastructure the right way means being a real, long-term partner to the communities where we operate.

We are looking for a Community Engagement Manager in Virginia and West Virginia to join our Public Policy team and serve as Anthropic's on-the-ground presence in the communities where our data centers are sited, built, and operated. This is not a communications role or a government affairs role, though you will do elements of both. It is a relationship role: your job is to make Anthropic a trusted, visible, and valued neighbor, from the earliest stages of site selection through construction and long-term operations.

You will be the connective tissue between Anthropic's Policy and Infrastructure teams and the local officials, community organizations, economic development partners, and residents who have a stake in what we build. You will surface concerns before they escalte, translate our technical and operational plans into clear local benefits, and build the coalitions that allow us to move quickly and responsibly. Because Anthropic's infrastructure footprint is still early in its growth, you will also help write the playbook: the processes you build in your first markets are the ones we will use as we expand.

You will travel regularly within Virginia and West Virginia, up to 50% of the time, and occasionally to other Anthropic data center markets.

Key responsibilities

• Build and maintain trusted, sustained relationships with Virginia boards of supervisors, city and town councils, and planning commissions, West Virginia county commissions and municipal officials, state economic development agencies, community groups, civic leaders, educational institutions, and workforce partners in the Virginia and West Virginia data center markets you cover

• Develop and execute a community engagement strategy for each of your markets, spanning site selection, pre-development, construction, and ongoing operations

• Build external coalitions, host education and listening sessions, and design local solutions that deliver real benefits to the communities where we operate

• Represent Anthropic in public forums, town halls, planning hearings, community events, and local media

• Monitor community sentiment and local political dynamics, and advise internal teams on risks, opportunities, and the right pace and posture for engagement, including in markets where data center development is already well established and community questions about its cumulative effects are active

• Partner with the Real Estate and Infrastructure team to bring community input into how projects are planned, communicated, and delivered, not just how they are announced

• Work with the Communications team to develop proactive, locally relevant messaging

• Coordinate charitable giving, community investment, and economic development commitments in your markets, including managing nonprofit partner relationships

• Partner with the Energy and Sustainability team to explain our approach to environmental stewardship and respond to questions about power, water, noise, transmission, and land use

• Build a community engagement playbook and repeatable processes that scale as Anthropic's infrastructure footprint grows

Minimum qualifications

• Experience in community affairs, public affairs, economic development, government relations, local or state government, or a closely related field

• Direct experience working for or engaging with local governments and a broad set of community stakeholders on behalf of large infrastructure, construction, energy, or technology projects, with a working understanding of how local politics and community dynamics actually