Design Engineer, Education Labs
About the role
We believe skill with AI is fundamental to human agency. Education Labs builds the paradigms that help people become genuinely more capable—not just more engaged.
This is a new kind of role: part researcher, part product builder, part interaction designer. You'll be the second technical builder on a small team studying how AI transforms human capability—and shipping features based on what we discover. You'll have significant creative license to define what "good" looks like, exploring new interaction patterns rather than optimizing existing ones.
You'll operate as a one-person technical shop: prototyping new ideas, establishing technical direction, and shipping production-quality features to millions of users. You'll need strong product instincts and clean interface design sensibilities, balanced with comfort in ambiguity and frontier thinking.
Responsibilities
- Ship features that help users develop real skill with AI—measuring success by capability growth, not time-on-site
- Arcitect end-to-end prototypes (front-end and back-end) that test new interaction paradigms, with particular attention to the front-of-the-frontend: motion, polish, and interaction feel
- Define technical direction for the team—establish patterns others can follow
- Build relationships across Product, Design, and Research to influence how skill development principles shape Anthropic's broader product strategy
- Shape team strategy and roadmap—identify the highest-leverage opportunities and build conviction across stakeholders
- Translate research insights about skill development and human-AI collaboration into shipped product through close collaboration with researchers
- Document and share your work through clear writing, prototypes, and presentations that influence thinking across the organization
Requirements
- Strong full-stack engineering with design sensibility
- 6+ years building and shipping web products, with deep expertise across the stack
- Strong front-end craft: TypeScript/JavaScript, React, CSS—with an eye for interaction design, motion, and visual detail
- Solid back-end and data pipeline experience: Python, API design, analytics infrastructure
- A portfolio showcasing innovative interaction designs and high-quality implementations
- Track record of independently driving features from prototype to production
- Deep conviction about human capability
- Experience or genuine passion for skill development, HCI, developer tools, or products that help people become more capable
- Skepticism of purely engagement-driven metrics; interest in measuring capability outcomes
- Research mindset with product execution
- Comfort with ambiguity and exploring undefined problem spaces
- Ability to rapidly prototype, test with users, and iterate toward production
- Strong instincts for product design and user experience, even without formal design training
- Strategic leadership and coalition building
- Experience setting vision, shaping team strategy, and building conviction across cross-functional stakeholders
- Ability to build productive relationships with Product, Design, Research, and Engineering teams—especially when your team isn't the owner
- Strong sense of prioritization—knowing what to build now, what to defer, and what to cut
- Track record of influencing roadmaps and decisions beyond your immediate team
Qualifications
- Background in learning sciences, cognitive science, HCI, skill acquisition research, or educational psychology (formal or self-directed)
- Experience with experimentation frameworks, A/B testing, or analytics that measure capability development in production
- Previous experience in research labs, frontier tech companies, or startups with high autonomy and ambiguity
- Published writing, talks, or open-source work on skill development, human-AI interaction, or product philosophy
- Experience building AI-native product experiences or working with LLMs in production contexts