About the role:
When you see what modern language models are capable of, do you wonder, "How do these things work? How can we trust them?"
The Interpretability team’s mission is to reverse engineer how trained models work. We believe that a mechanistic understanding is the most robust way to make advanced systems safe.
As one of the managers on the Interpretability team in Anthropic’s research organization, you'll support a team of expert researchers and engineers who are trying to understand at a deep, mechanistic level, how modern large language models work internally.
Interpretability research is one of Anthropic’s core research bets on AI safety. We believe that deeply understanding how AI systems work at a mechanistic level is the most robust way to make advanced systems safe. Our Interpretability work touches nearly all parts of our research org and infrastructure, whether that's designing and running scientific experiments, optimizing complex programs for throughput and efficiency, or collaborating with other research teams to increase the impact and reach of our discoveries.
Your work as manager will be critical in making sure that our fast-growing team is able to meet its ambitious safety research goals over the coming years. You will manage careers and performance, facilitate relationships within and across teams, and shepherd the hiring pipeline. Your primary responsibilities will be people, project and performance management.
Responsibilities:
- Partner with a Technical Research Lead to prioritize the team's work in alignment with our overall research strategy and goals
- Identify improvements to processes (e.g. research reviews, reading groups, code reviews) and implement solutions that help the team operate effectively
- Coach and support your direct reports in their professional growth and development
- Run the team's recruiting efforts efficiently, ensuring we can grow rapidly through a period of significant expansion
- Communicate team updates and results to other teams and leadership
You may be a good fit if you:
- Believe that advanced AI systems could have a transformative effect on the world, and are passionate about helping make sure that transformation goes well
- Are an experienced manager (with at least 2 years of recent experience) with a track record of leading high-performing research or engineering teams and actively enjoy people management
- Have at least 5 years of technical experience with research and/or engineering
- Have experience with our research or are motivated to learn more about it
- Enjoy working on an interdisciplinary team
Strong candidates may also have experience with:
- Strong people management experience, including coaching, performance evaluation, mentorship, and career development
- Excellent project management skills, including prioritization and cross-functional coordination
- Experience recruiting talent for your team
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Experience working on open-ended, exploratory research agendas
- Familiarity with engineering infrastructure inside fast-moving research teams
Role Specific Location Policy:
- This role is expected to be in our SF office for 3 days a week.