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Director, Accounting Operations

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 role

Anthropic is seeking an exceptional Director of Corporate Accounting to lead our Corporate Accounting organization as we scale our financial operations to support frontier AI development. In this pivotal leadership role, you will own the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of our core accounting infrastructure across workplace, workforce, and corporate operations. You will build and lead a world-class team that ensures accuracy, control, and efficiency while supporting Anthropic's rapid growth.

This role sits at the intersection of technical accounting expertise, systems, and operational excellence. You'll partner closely with Finance & Strategy, Tax, Revenue Accounting, and cross-functional stakeholders to establish scalable processes and controls. As a key leader in the Accounting organization, you will drive strategic initiatives including system selection and implementation, close acceleration, and the buildout of our control framework. Your work will be essential in providing the financial foundation that enables Anthropic to focus on our mission of developing safe, transformative AI systems.

Responsibilities:

Accounting Leadership & Operations

  • Own end-to-end accounting for workplace and workforce, including real estate leasing (ASC 842), fixed assets, cash and treasury, operating expenses, prepaids and accruals, payroll, taxes and benefits, commissions, and stock-based compensation support

  • Drive month-end and quarter-end close processes, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and continuous acceleration of close cycles

  • Establish and maintain the Chart of Accounts and master data governance structure, ensuring it supports current operations and scales for future complexity

  • Design and implement allocation methodologies that provide clear cost visibility across the organization

  • Ensure compliance with US GAAP, internal policies, and regulatory requirements across all corporate accounting areas

  • Lead process improvement initiatives to increase efficiency, reduce manual work, and enhance data quality

Systems & Infrastructure

  • Serve as a key stakeholder in ERP design, selection, and implementation, translating business requirements into system specifications

  • Lead selection and implementation of specialized systems for lease accounting and commissions management

  • Own master data governance, ensuring data integrity and consistency across financial systems

  • Drive adoption of close management tools to streamline workflows and enhance visibility

  • Partner with Finance Systems team to optimize integrations and automation opportunities

Team Building & Leadership

  • Build, coach, and lead a world-class corporate accounting team capable of supporting Anthropic's growth trajectory

  • Recruit top accounting talent with both technical expertise and a growth mindset

  • Provide mentorship and career development opportunities, fostering a culture of excellence and continuous learning

  • Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations as the team scales

  • Create an environment that balances rigorous controls with operational agility

Strategic Partnership

  • Collaborate with Finance & Strategy to provide accurate data and insights that inform business decisions

  • Partner with Tax on compliance requirements and optimization opportunities

  • Support global expansion initiatives by establishing accounting processes for new entities and jurisdictions

  • Provide technical accounting guidance on complex transactions and new business models

You may be a good fit if you:

  • Have 15+ years of progressive accounting experience with at least 5+ years in leadership roles managing teams of 5+ people

  • Possess deep technical accounting expertise, particularly in ASC 842 (lease accounting), ASC 718 (stock-based compensation), and complex operational accounting

  • Have proven experience building and scaling accounting organizations in high-growth technology companies

  • Hold a Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance; CPA required

  • Are a strategic thinker who can balance technical precision with business pragmatism

  • Have successfully led or played a key role in ERP implementations or major systems projects

  • Excel at building scalable processes and controls that support rapid growth

  • Are comfortable operating in ambiguous environments and building structure where none exists

  • Possess exceptional communication skills and can effectively partner with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

  • Have a bias toward action and continuous improvement, always asking "how can we do this better?" in a constructive, look forward mentality

  • Thrive in fast-paced environments and maintain composure under tight deadlines

  • Care about building diverse, inclusive teams and creating environments where people do their best work

Strong candidates may also:

  • Have public company accounting experience, including preparation for or execution of IPO readiness activities

  • Possess expertise in international accounting, consolidations, and multi-entity operations

  • Have experience with NetSuite, Workday, and modern SaaS accounting platforms

  • Bring knowledge of subscription and consumption-based revenue models

  • Have managed accounting through periods of significant organizational change

  • Possess project management skills and experience leading cross-functional initiatives

  • Have familiarity with AI/ML business models and infrastructure accounting

  • Demonstrate thought leadership through participation in professional organizations or speaking engagements

Deadline to apply: None. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

The expected base compensation for this position is below. Our total compensation package for full-time employees includes equity, benefits, and may include incentive compensation.

Annual Salary:

$230,000 - $300,000 USD

Logistics

Education requirements: We require at least a Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent experience.

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 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.

How we're different

We believe that the highest-impact AI research will be big science. At Anthropic we work as a single cohesive team on just a few large-scale research efforts. And we value impact — advancing our long-term goals of steerable, trustworthy AI — rather than work on smaller and more specific puzzles. We view AI research as an empirical science, which has as much in common with physics and biology as with traditional efforts in computer science. We're an extremely collaborative group, and we host frequent research discussions to ensure that we are pursuing the highest-impact work at any given time. As such, we greatly value communication skills.

The easiest way to understand our research directions is to read our recent research. This research continues many of the directions our team worked on prior to Anthropic, including: GPT-3, Circuit-Based Interpretability, Multimodal Neurons, Scaling Laws, AI & Compute, Concrete Problems in AI Safety, and Learning from Human Preferences.

Come work with us!

Anthropic is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and a lovely office space in which to collaborate with colleagues. Guidance on Candidates' AI Usage: Learn about our policy for using AI in our application process

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