Staff Fiber Network Engineer

About the role

The Staff Fiber Network Engineer will own the physical layer of Anthropic's Anternet, a private, global dark-fiber backbone. Responsibilities include route engineering, fiber acquisition, vendor management, and acceptance and characterization.

Responsibilities

• Plan terrestrial fiber routes between Anternet PoPs and data centers, evaluate diversity, latency, and OSNR/loss budgets.
• Fiber acquisition>Source and qualify dark fiber, IRU, and wavelength options from carriers and infrastructure providers, run RFPs, and drive contracts to signature.
• Vendor and delivery management>Own the build from PO to acceptance, track splicing, lateral construction, building entries, meet-me-room cross-connects, and CLS access, hold vendors to schedule and SLA, serve as the escalation point when a span is late or fails OTDR.
• Acceptance and characterization>Define and enforce fiber acceptance criteria, review test results, reject substandard spans, and sign off on handover to the optical team.
• Capacity and lifecycle management>Maintain the source-of-truth fiber inventory, forecast fiber needs against our PoP and capacity roadmap, monitor degradation and quality over time.
• Operations>Partner with NOC and field-ops on fiber cuts, locates, and repairs, drive root-cause analysis with vendors and feed lessons back into route-diversity decisions.

Requirements

• Experience in OSP/fiber planning or network delivery at a carrier, hyperscaler, dark-fiber provider, or large enterprise backbone.
• Demonstrated experience taking long-haul or metro dark-fiber routes from design through acceptance.
• Solid working knowledge of the vendor landscape, including conduit, IRU pricing, and MSAs.
• Proficiency with GIS/KMZ tooling for route design and structured inventory data maintenance.
• Sufficient understanding of optical transport (DWDM, amplifier spacing, span loss, CD/PMD) to design fiber that line-system engineers can use.
• Ability to serve as the single accountable owner for physical delivery across many concurrent builds.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of OSP/fiber planning or network delivery experience.
• Familiarity with permitting, ROW, and make-ready processes in US metro markets.
• Scripting or light tooling experience (Python, Go, SQL, or similar) for inventory and reporting workflows.
• Comfort with occasional travel for site surveys, CLS/ILA walks, and vendor meetings.

Skills

• Strong communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Attention to detail and ability to handle complex technical tasks.

Benefits

Annual compensation range: $320,000—$405,000 USD

Pay

Annual Salary: $320,000—$405,000 USD

Schedule

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.

Application Instructions

To apply, visit anthropic.com/careers and search for the "Staff Fiber Network Engineer" role.