Network Deployment and Maintenance Lead - Data Center Operations

Anthropic; Friendly (MD); Hybrid; USD 320,000 - 405,000; Full time

Job summary

Anthropic seeks a Network Deployment and Maintenance Lead to oversee network delivery, turn-up, and repair management across a growing fleet of partner-operated data centers. The role includes on-site leadership during construction and deployment phases, with a focus on ensuring robust network health and reliable operations.

You will coordinate with global teams, drive standardization, manage vendor relationships, and own the end-to-end execution from cabling and optics to production handover,

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in data center operations or network deployment in a leadership or senior role.
• Proven track record leading large-scale data center network deployments across multiple sites.
• Experience running break-fix or repair programs for network hardware, ticket flow, RMA, and spares.
• Hands-on depth in data center networking (switches, cabling, fiber, optics) to verify turn-up and repair quality.
• Experience building or improving operational processes.
• Comfortable using schedule, ticket, telemetry, and inventory data to drive decisions.
• Ability to travel heavily (50%) and work on-site during deployments and surges.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

• Own network deployment outcomes for assigned sites and data-hall waves, including turn-up and acceptance.
• Coordinate from construction kickoff, ensure readiness, and manage gaps with site operations and facilities.
• Be on-site during critical phases to verify work and support teams with expertise.
• Validate handover gates for network builds and ensure documentation and spares are ready.
• Manage the network repair program, SLAs, prioritization, and escalation with vendors and teams.
• Oversee RMA and spares for network gear, including warranty claims and turnaround times.
• Lead weekly deployment and repair reviews with partner site leads; identify failure patterns and drive actions.
• Translate deployment/repair learnings into standards, procedures, and metrics.

Skills

Data center ops

Network deployment

Technical leadership

Repair programs

Cabling & optics

Vendor management

Travel readiness

Education

Bachelor's degree

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 Network Deployment and Maintenance Lead within Anthropic's Data Center Operations (DCO) organization, you will ensure the network inside our data halls is brought online and kept healthy across a growing fleet of partner-operated data centers. The scope is the network within and between data halls: the cluster network, management, telemetry, accelerator chip back-end networks, aggregation layer(s), as well as the cabling, optics, and switching around them. On the deployment side, you are engaged during planning and construction, and will be on site during late-stage construction through network delivery and receiving, cabling, integration, turn-up, validation, and acceptance. You will be the on site lead for structured handover of network delivery into production operations. On the maintenance side, you drive the network repair program including: break-fix and ticket flow, vendor RMA, sparing policies, and the SLAs which operations partners execute against. Finally, some of this work touches core networks, where you will partner with Anthropics WAN/Core network team to support campus/DC core network deployment and maintenance activities.

This is a program and execution role. You will work with the Global Capacity Delivery Program Leads, the Repairs Program Leads, and the broader Data Center Operations organization to extend network coverage across more sites and platforms as the fleet grows. Expect 50%+ travel: you get eyes on the floor at each site during network delivery, turn-up, QA, and close-out, and at sites where repair performance needs attention. Your authority comes from being on site where you foster strong relationships with on site teams. Working with third party vendors and partners, you set direction, priorities, and standards for execution. Success is defined against Anthropic-owned ticket and telemetry data you’ve built rather than self-reported status. If you have deployed and maintained data center networks at scale, are passionate about hyperscale data centers, & enjoy working in complex, fast-paced environments, we welcome you to apply.

Responsibilities Include:

• Own network deployment outcomes for your assigned sites and data-hall waves: DCN, management, telemetry, Accelerator chip back-end networks, aggregation layer(s) turned up and accepted on schedule, with exceptions closed out, or risk called early enough for leadership to act.

• Engage from construction kickoff and confirm network readiness ahead of each wave: pathways and fiber trays, cabling and optics on hand, receiving paths, and partner staffing, working the gaps with the site operations partner and facilities counterparts before gear arrives.

• Be on site at key points during network delivery, cabling, turn-up, QA, and close-out; verify the work with your own eyes rather than from a dashboard, and support the on-site teams with your direct expertise.

• Validate the handover gate for each network build: cabling and link validation complete, acceptance criteria met, documentation delivered, spares positioned, ticketing live, and a structured handover into production operations and the repair program.

• Own the network repair program across the fleet: repair SLAs, prioritization, and escalation paths for switches, optics, and cabling, with turnaround time and backlog tracked in Anthropic-owned ticket and telemetry dashboards.

• Manage RMA and spares for network gear with vendors and site operations partners, including warranty claims, return cycle times, and spares levels by site and part, so that parts availability never gates a repair SLA.

• Lead the operating cadence with partner site leads, including weekly deployment and repair reviews and scorecards; analyze failure patterns and drive corrective actions with network engineering, suppliers, and the WAN/Core teams when the core network/MMR is involved.

• Turn lessons from each deployment and repair into program standards (procedures, checklists, acceptance criteria, and metrics), and communicate status, dependencies, and risk to engineering, capacity planning, and leadership.

You may be a good fit if you:

• Have 8+ years of experience in data center operations or network deployment as a manager, technical lead or related role, including accountability for delivery milestones and production availability.

• Can demonstrate a proven track record leading data center network deployments at a large scale across multiple sites or data-hall waves, from early floor access through turn-up and acceptance.

• Have run break-fix or repair programs for network hardware, including ticket flow, RMA, and spares, and managed vendors, OEMs, or contract workforces to measurable outcomes: milestones, SLAs, quality gates, operational reviews, and corrective action.

• Possess hands-on technical depth in data center networking, including switches, structured cabling, fiber, and optics, enough to independently verify turn-up and repair quality and audit vendor claims.

• Have built or substantially improved operational processes.

• Are comfortable working with schedule, ticket, telemetry, and inventory data to drive decisions.

• Can travel heavily and work on site for extended stretches, including during delivery surges and turn-up windows. 50% travel expected.

• Possess a bachelor's degree in relevant domain or equivalent practical experience.

It’s a bonus if you have:

• Experience with dense accelerator networks, including high-speed interconnect, optics, and cabling at rack and pod scale.

• Experience standing up network operations at a new site or data hall, from commissioning handoff through first turn-up.

• Experience managing RMA and warranty programs with network OEMs, including failure analysis and supplier quality engagement.

• Experience delivering deployment and repair outcomes inside partner-operated or colocation sites where on-the-floor operations are staffed via third parties.

• Familiarity with meet-me room and WAN bring-up, and with the handoffs between in-hall and building-level network teams.

The annual compensation range for this role is listed below.

For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role.

Annual Salary: $320,000 — $405,000 USD

Logistics

Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience

Required field of study:A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience

Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position

Location-based hybrid policy: Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices.

Visa sponsorship:We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed. Research shows that people who identify as being from underrepresented groups are more prone to experiencing imposter syndrome and doubting the strength of their candidacy, so we urge you not to exclude yourself prematurely and to submit an application if you're interested in this work. We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.

How we're different

We believe that the highest-impact AI research will be big science. At Anthropic we work as a single cohesive team on just a few large-scale research efforts. And we value impact — advancing our long-term goals of steerable, trustworthy AI — rather than work on smaller and more specific puzzles. We view AI research as an empirical science, which has as much in common with physics and biology as with traditional efforts in computer science. We're an extremely collaborative group, and we host frequent research discussions to ensure that we are pursuing the highest-impact work at any given time. As such, we greatly value communication skills.

The easiest way to understand our research directions is to read our recent research. This research continues many of the directions our team worked on prior to Anthropic, including: GPT-3, Circuit-Based Interpretability, Multimodal Neurons, Scaling Laws, AI & Compute, Concrete Problems in AI Safety, and Learning from Human Preferences.

Come work with us!

Anthropic is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and a lovely office space in which to collaborate with colleagues. Guidance on Candidates' AI Usage: Learn about our policy for using AI in our application process.