Research Engineer / Scientist, Frontier Red Team (Cyber)

Job Application for Research Engineer / Scientist, Frontier Red Team (Cyber) at Anthropic

Research Engineer / Scientist, Frontier Red Team (Cyber) San Francisco, CA

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 Team

The Frontier Red Team (FRT) is a small, focused technical research team within Anthropic's Policy organization. Our goal is to make the entire world safer in an era of advanced AI by understanding what these systems can do and building the defenses that matter.

In 2026, we're focused on researching and ensuring safety with self-improving, highly autonomous AI systems, especially ones related to cyberphysical capabilities. See our previous related work on exploits , partnering with Mozilla , and zero days . This is early-stage, high-conviction research with the potential for outsized impact — Glasswing is one example.

Note: We are exclusively hiring in SF. We support relocation, but all hires must relocate before starting.

About the Role

In the last year, we've seen compelling signs that LLMs and agents are increasingly capable of novel cyber capabilities. We think 2026 will be the year where models reach expert-level, even superhuman, in several cybersecurity domains. This is a novel and massive threat surface.

As a Research Scientist on FRT focusing on cyber, you'll build the tools and frameworks needed to defend the world against advanced AI-enabled cyber threats. Senior candidates will have the opportunity to shape and grow Anthropic's cyberdefense research program, working with Security, Safeguards, Policy, and other partner teams. This work sits at the intersection of AI capabilities research, cybersecurity, and policy—what we learn directly shapes how Anthropic and the world prepare for AI-enabled cyber threats.

This is applied research with real-world stakes. Your work will inform decisions at the highest levels of the company, contribute to demonstrations that shape policy discourse, and build the technical defenses that we will need for a future of increasingly powerful AI systems.

What You'll Do

Develop systems, tools, and frameworks for AI-empowered cybersecurity, such as autonomous vulnerability discovery and remediation, malware detection and management, network hardening, and pentesting

Design and run experiments to elicit and evaluate autonomous AI cyber capabilities in realistic scenarios

Design and build infrastructure for evaluating and enabling AI systems to operate in security environments

Translate technical findings into compelling demonstrations and artifacts that inform policymakers and the public

Collaborate with external experts in cybersecurity, national security, and AI safety to scope and validate research directions

Senior candidates will also set research strategy, define what problems are worth solving, own the technical roadmap, and manage relationships with cross-functional partners

Sample Projects

Building frameworks and tools that enable AI models to autonomously find and patch vulnerabilities

Running purple-team simulations where AI defenders compete against AI attackers in network environments

Pointing autonomous AI systems at real-world security challenges (bug bounties, CTFs etc.) to characterize risks, defensive potential, and compare to human experts

Building demonstrations of frontier AI cyber capabilities for policy stakeholders

You May Be a Good Fit If You

Have deep expertise in cybersecurity or security research

Are driven to find solutions to complex, high-stakes problems

Have experience doing technical research with LLM-based agents or autonomous systems

Have strong software engineering skills, particularly in Python

Can own entire problems end-to-end, including both technical and non-technical components

Design and run experiments quickly, iterating fast toward useful results

Thrive in collaborative environments

Care deeply about AI safety and want your work to have real-world impact on how humanity navigates advanced AI

Are comfortable working on sensitive projects that require discretion and integrity

Have proven ability to lead cross-functional security initiatives and navigate complex organizational dynamics

Strong Candidates May Also Have

Experience with offensive security research, vulnerability research, or exploit development

Research or professional experience applying LLMs to security problems

Track record in competitive CTFs, bug bounties, or other security-related competitions

Experience building security tools or automation

Track record of building demos or prototypes that communicate complex technical ideas

Experience working with external stakeholders (policymakers, government, researchers)

Familiarity with AI safety research and threat modeling for advanced AI systems

The annual compensation range for this role is listed below.

For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role.

Annual Salary: $320,000 - $485,000 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 encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed. Research shows that people who identify as being from underrepresented groups are more prone to experiencing imposter syndrome and…