Manager of Applied AI Architecture, Startups

EngineersOfAI; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Anthropic is seeking a Manager of Startups Applied AI Architects to drive frontier AI adoption by leading a team of technical architects who help startups build AI-native products with the Claude Developer Platform.

You will earn the trust of founders and engineers, set the vision for technical partnerships, and grow a high-performing team while staying closely aligned with ground-level execution.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in technical customer-facing roles (solutions architect, sales engineer, etc.).
• 5+ years leading and managing pre-sales or technical go-to-market teams.
• Experience with startups or high-growth tech companies.
• Builder credibility: built and deployed LLM-powered apps; credible with founders/technical buyers.
• Hands-on expertise with context engineering and AI tooling.

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and grow a team of Startups Applied AI Architects with high technical credibility.
• Drive team performance through coaching, goal setting, and ongoing technical development.
• Lead pre-sales engagements with top startup accounts from discovery to deployment and expansion.
• Build and own technical playbooks for evaluations, success frameworks, and win strategies.
• Partner with Account Executives and GTM leadership to shape segment strategy and Claude API adoption.
• Surface insights on startup usage of Claude and translate to Product/Engineering feedback.
• Influence Sales, Product, and Engineering to meet startup needs and priorities.
• Build Anthropic's technical presence via events, workshops, and content in the startup ecosystem.
• Stay at the frontier of AI engineering landscapes and developer tooling.

Skills

Technical leadership

Pre-sales experience

Customer-facing roles

SA team building

Startup ecosystem knowledge

LLM architectures

Claude API

Tools

Claude API

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:

As a Manager of Startups Applied AI Architects at Anthropic, you will drive adoption of frontier AI by leading a team of technical architects to help startups build AI-native products with the Claude Developer Platform. Your team is expected to win the trust of founders and engineers by supporting their technical ambitions from early product to scale. You'll bring your own builder credibility and startup instincts to the role — setting the vision for what great technical partnership looks like in the startup segment, developing a high-performing team, and personally carrying relationships with Anthropic's most strategic early-stage accounts.

This is a role for a proven technical go-to-market leader who knows how to build teams that move at startup speed, earn the trust of deeply technical buyers, and turn a scrappy early engagement into a lasting technical partnership. You'll define the playbooks for nurturing and scaling new customers, set the bar for technical excellence, and grow the people — while staying close enough to the ground to know what's actually working. You will partner with sales leaders and work as one team to support your customers.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, develop, and grow a team of Startups Applied AI Architects — setting a high bar for technical credibility, customer impact, and startup-paced execution

• Drive team performance through clear goal-setting, regular coaching, and a culture of continuous technical development

• Personally lead pre-sales engagements with high-priority startup accounts, from initial technical discovery through deployment and expansion, modeling what great looks like for your team

• Build and own the segment's technical playbooks: how to run technical evaluations, develop customer-specific eval frameworks, architect LLM solutions for resource-constrained early-stage teams, and win against competitive alternatives

• Partner with aligned Account Executives and GTM leadership to shape segment strategy and drive Claude API adoption across the startup ecosystem

• Ensure your team consistently surfaces insights on how startups are building with Claude — emerging use cases, deployment patterns, architectural decisions — and translate that signal into actionable feedback for Product and Engineering

• Drive cross-functional influence across Sales, Product, and Engineering to advance startup customer needs and shape roadmap priorities

• Build Anthropic's technical presence and credibility in the startup ecosystem through events, conferences, workshops, and content

• Stay ahead of the AI engineering landscape — context engineering, eval frameworks, agentic architectures, developer tooling — and ensure your team is operating at the frontier

You may be a good fit if you:

• Have 8+ years of experience in technical customer-facing roles (Solutions Architect, Sales Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, or similar), with 5+ years leading and managing pre-sales or technical go-to-market teams

• Have a strong track record of building and developing high-performing SA teams — you know how to hire well, coach effectively, and create an environment where technical talent grows and does their best work

• Have deep experience working with startups or high-growth technology companies — you understand the velocity, constraints, and culture of early-stage companies and know how technical decisions get made at each stage of the journey

• Bring genuine builder credibility: you've built and deployed LLM-powered applications, you speak the language of founders and founding engineers, and you can earn the trust of deeply technical audiences without relying on a title

• Have hands-on expertise with context engin