Manager of Applied AI Architecture, Startups
San Francisco, CA
Posted 16d ago
About the job
As a Manager of Startups Applied AI Architects at Anthropic, you will lead a team of technical architects to help startups build AI-native products using the Claude Developer Platform. Your team will earn the trust of founders and engineers by supporting their technical ambitions from early product to scale. This role requires a proven technical go-to-market leader who can build teams that move at startup speed, earn the trust of technical buyers, and turn early engagements into lasting partnerships. You will define playbooks for nurturing and scaling new customers, set the bar for technical excellence, and grow your team, while staying connected to customer needs.
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.
- Build and own the segment's technical playbooks for running technical evaluations, developing customer-specific eval frameworks, architecting LLM solutions, and winning against competitive alternatives.
- Partner with Account Executives and GTM leadership to shape segment strategy and drive Claude API adoption across the startup ecosystem.
- Surface insights on how startups are building with Claude 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, including context engineering, eval frameworks, agentic architectures, and developer tooling.
Requirements
- 8+ years of experience in technical customer-facing roles (Solutions Architect, Sales Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, or similar).
- 5+ years leading and managing pre-sales or technical go-to-market teams.
- Strong track record of building and developing high-performing SA teams.
- Deep experience working with startups or high-growth technology companies, understanding their velocity, constraints, and culture.
- Builder credibility: experience building and deploying LLM-powered applications and speaking the language of founders and founding engineers.
- Hands-on expertise with context engineering, LLM evaluation frameworks, and modern AI architectures.
- Comfortable with Python and fluent in LLM frameworks, tools, and integration patterns common in startup engineering stacks.
- Ability to thrive in ambiguous environments, define playbooks, and adapt to rapidly evolving technology and customer segments.
- Genuine passion for making powerful technology safe and societally beneficial.