Technical Program Manager, Hardware Systems

Anthropic; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 365,000 - 435,000; Full time

Job summary

Anthropic is expanding its hardware team in San Francisco. The Technical Program Manager will own execution of hardware systems from concept to production, coordinating ODMs/CMs, silicon, firmware, and data center teams. The role requires agility in a fast-moving environment with strong leadership and communication skills.

You will drive schedules, risk management, and readiness across board, chassis, rack, and interconnect, and help shape the NPI process and reviews for new platforms.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in hardware systems / NPI program management for compute, networking, storage, or accelerator platforms.
• Direct ownership of at least one platform from concept through volume production and EVT/DVT/PVT arc.
• Fluent hardware fluency across the stack and ability to challenge architects and vendors.

Responsibilities

• Own the integrated hardware systems program plan across board, chassis, rack, and interconnect through EVT/DVT/PVT and ramp.
• Drive execution with ODMs, contract manufacturers, and component vendors including SOWs and schedules.
• Stand up and run the NPI cadence with reviews, DFx, and exit criteria.
• Lead bring-up and validation for new platforms including firmware and diagnostics coordination.
• Own interfaces: silicon, datacenter, infrastructure software, and supply chain.
• Run evaluations of partners and technologies and land recommendations for build/buy/co-design.
• Communicate program status to architects and executives; maintain cadence.

Skills

NPI program management

ODM/CM management

SOW negotiation

build tracking

power delivery

thermal management

high-speed interconnect

board design

system management

exec communications

vendor coordination

Education

BS/MS in EE, CE, ME

Tools

AI tools

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 trains and serves frontier AI models on some of the largest accelerator fleets in the world, and we're now building the custom hardware systems that fleet will run on - from the package boundary out through boards, racks, interconnect, power, cooling, and the datacenter interface.

We're looking for a Technical Program Manager to own execution of these hardware systems from concept through production deployment. You'll drive the program that turns architecture and specs into boards and racks that ship - managing ODMs, CMs, and component vendors on one side, and coordinating silicon, firmware, infrastructure software, supply chain, and datacenter teams on the other.

This is a role on a new hardware team. You'll build the program cadence, review structure, and NPI process this team runs on. We need someone who has shipped hardware at scale, has a realistic view of ODM/CM schedules and where they break, and is comfortable owning consequential program calls without a large organization behind them.

Key responsibilities

• Own the integrated hardware systems program plan across board, chassis, rack, and interconnect - from requirements through EVT/DVT/PVT, qualification, and production ramp - and be the source of truth on schedule, risk, and readiness.
• Drive execution with ODMs, contract manufacturers, and component/optics vendors: SOWs, build schedules, deliverable tracking, factory readiness, and escalation when they slip.
• Stand up and run the NPI cadence - build matrix, engineering reviews, DFx, issue triage, exit criteria - and keep it lightweight enough that a small, senior team actually uses it.
• Drive the bring-up and validation program for new platforms: lab and pilot-rack logistics, firmware/BMC/diagnostics coordination, test coverage, and the reliability and telemetry targets a platform has to hit before it enters the fleet.
• Own the interfaces that make or break a hardware program: silicon (samples, package, power/thermal envelopes), datacenter (power, cooling, rack integration, deployment windows), infrastructure software (management plane, provisioning, telemetry), and supply chain (long-lead components, second-sourcing, allocation).
• Run partner and technology evaluations as a program - candidate ODMs, reference platforms, connector/optics/memory options - and land build / buy / co-design recommendations with the architecture team.
• Own program communication upward and outward - for an audience that ranges from architects to executives.
• Develop and share AI-assisted approaches to hardware program management - issue-tracker synthesis, build-readiness checking, spec/BOM consistency, ODM-report digestion.

Minimum qualifications

• 8+ years in hardware systems / NPI program management for compute, networking, storage, or accelerator platforms.
• Direct ownership of at least one platform from concept through volume production - you can walk through its EVT/DVT/PVT arc, what broke, and how you recovered.
• Working technical fluency across the hardware stack - power delivery, thermal, mechanical, high-speed interconnect, board design, system management - sufficient to interrogate status and push back credibly on architects and vendors.
• Experience managing ODMs/CMs and component vendors, including SOW negotiation, build tracking, quality escapes, and escalation.
• Track record of standing up program mechanisms on a new or early-stage hardware effort, not just operating inside a mature PLC.
• Strong written communication - plans, reviews, and exec updates that many teams depend on.
• Comfort operating with high autonomy and limited process in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with AI/ML accelerator systems (GPU, TPU, custom ASIC), HPC, or hyperscale datacenter platforms and their scale-up / scale-out fabrics.
• Experience taking a first‑generation, custom‑silicon‑based system from bring‑up through fleet deployment.
• Experience with liquid‑cooled and/or high‑density rack architectures, rack level high power distribution, or optical interconnect programs.
• Familiarity with the chip‑package‑system interface and coordinating tightly with a silicon team.
• Experience with datacenter integration, deployment, and fleet‑scale reliability/RAS programs.
• Practical experience using AI tools in your own workflow, and clear ideas about where they help and where they don't.
• BS/MS in EE, CE, ME, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Annual Salary:$365,000 - $435,000 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 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.