ML Systems Fellow - ML Systems, Reinforcement Learning

Anthropic Fellows Program overview

The Anthropic Fellows Program is designed to foster AI research and engineering talent. We provide funding and mentorship to promising technical talent - regardless of previous experience.

Fellows will primarily use external infrastructure (e.g. open-source models, public APIs) to work on an empirical project aligned with our research priorities, with the goal of producing a public output (e.g. a paper submission). In one of our earlier cohorts, over 80% of fellows produced papers. We run multiple cohorts of Fellows each year and review applications on a rolling basis.

Apply at the bottom of this page. We are accepting applications on a rolling basis for the next cohort expected to start in January 2027. In some circumstances, we can accommodate fellows starting outside the usual cohort timelines — please note in your application if the January 2027 start date doesn't work for you.

What to expect

• 4 months of full-time research 
• Direct mentorship from Anthropic researchers 
• Access to a shared workspace 
• Connection to the broader AI safety and security research community
• Weekly stipend of 3,850 USD / 2,310 GBP / 4,300 CAD + benefits (these vary by country)
• Funding for compute (~$15k/month) and other research expenses

Interview process

The interview process will include an initial application, assessments, and interviews. We may ask for references later in the process as well.

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 doubting the strength of their candidacy, so we urge you not to exclude yourself prematurely and to submit an application if you're interested in this work. We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.

Compensation

The expected base stipend for this role is 3,850 USD / 2,310 GBP / 4,300 CAD per week, with an expectation of 40 hours per week for 4 months (with possible extension).

ML Systems & Performance Fellows

Mentors, research areas, & past projects

Fellows will undergo a project selection & mentor matching process. Potential mentors include:

• Alwin Peng
• Zygi Straznickas

Note: You may research mentors' prior work, but all applications must go through the official form, not the mentors.

For a past example of an engineering-heavy project, see:

• AI agents find $4.6M in blockchain smart contract exploits

Projects in this workstream may include:

• Building a CPU simulator for accelerator workloads
• Adding backends for different accelerators on an open source project
• Building on demand infrastructure for other infrastructure heavy fellows projects 
• Building complex synthetic data or environment pipelines

Unique candidate criteria

You might be a particularly great fit for this workstream if you:

• Have strong software engineering skills with experience building complex ML systems
• Can balance research exploration with engineering rigor and operational reliability
• Enjoy collaborating across research and engineering disciplines
• Are comfortable working with large-scale distributed systems and high-performance computing (e.g. in trading)
• Have experience with training, fine-tuning, or evaluating large language models
• Are adept at analyzing and debugging model training processes

You may be a good fit if you

• Are motivated by making sure AI is safe and beneficial for society as a whole
• Are excited to transition into empirical AI research and would be interested in a full-time role at Anthropic
• Have a strong technical background in computer science, mathematics, or physics
• Thrive in fast-paced, collaborative environments
• Can implement ideas quickly and communicate clearly

Candidates must be

• Fluent in Python programming
• Available to work full-time on the Fellows program

Reinforcement Learning Fellows

Mentors, research areas, & past projects

Fellows will undergo a project selection & mentor matching process. Potential research areas and mentors include:

• Ruhua Jiang
• Kaidi Cao
• Sunny Duan
• David Brandfonbrener
• Colt Steele
• Dino Distefano
• Will Williams

Projects in this workstream may include:

• Building model-based tools to better understand AI training data and improve training data quality
• A research project to better understand generalization
• Creating RL environments to improve Claude models at capabilities that are within your domain of expertise
• Building RL environments for safety-related tasks
• Conducting research and implementing solutions in areas such as RL algorithms

Unique candidate criteria

You might be a particularly great fit for this workstream if you:

• Have strong software engineering skills with experience building complex ML systems
• Can balance research exploration with engineering rigor and operational reliability
• Enjoy collaborating across research and engineering disciplines
• Are comfortable working with large-scale distributed systems and high-performance computing
• Have experience with training, fine-tuning, or evaluating large language models
• Are adept at analyzing and debugging model training processes

Logistics

Logistics Requirements: To participate in the Fellows program, you must have work authorization in the US, UK, or Canada and be located in that country during the program.

Workspace Locations: We have designated shared workspaces in SF. We are also open to remote fellows in the UK, US, or Canada. 

Visa Sponsorship: We are not currently able to sponsor visas for fellows. To participate in the Fellows program, you need to have or independently obtain full-time work authorization in the UK, the US, or Canada.

Program Duration: The program runs for 4 months, full-time. If you can't commit to the full duration, please still apply and note your constraints in the application. We review these requests on a case-by-case basis.

Please note: We do not guarantee that we will make any full-time offers to fellows. However, strong performance during the program may indicate that a Fellow would be a good fit for full-time roles at Anthropic. In previous cohorts, 25-50% of fellows received a full-time offer, and we’ve supported many more to go on to do great work on AI safety and security at other organizations.

The below are Anthropic's policies for full time roles. These do NOT apply to the Fellows Program.