Autonomous Systems Security Engineer

Overview

Own autonomous systems (drones, ground robots, automated vehicles) and uncrewed-system detection as one security domain across Anthropic's data center footprint, including the security of site automation operating inside secure areas. Interdiction is not part of this role.

What you'll do

• Own the drones, ground robots and other autonomous platforms for perimeter patrol, incident response and infrastructure inspection: platform selection, operating model, operator qualification, maintenance, and the data path from machine to analyst.
• Build the integrations that carry detections, tracks, telemetry and fleet health into the team's security monitoring platform.
• Build the tools and agents that triage detections, check fleet health and assemble evidence.
• Engineer the sensing that tells us what is flying over or operating near a site, what it is and who needs to know: sensor selection and evaluation against live targets, per-site coverage, classification and false-alarm handling.
• Own the playbook from first detection to handoff, with evidence retained.
• Engineer the controls on automated vehicles, robots and similar machines that move hardware or work inside secure areas: identity and access, network isolation, what they may record and where it goes, fail-secure behavior, their place in chain of custody, and acceptance before they enter a site.
• Establish what we may sense, fly, drive, record and retain at each site, including partner-operated sites, under the applicable aviation, spectrum, privacy and safety rules, with the waivers and approvals that extend it and coordination with local authorities set up in advance.
• Define and test heartbeats, loss-of-coverage and lost-link alarms and fail-secure behavior.
• Write vendor requirements, evaluate against live flights and runs, and hold vendors to what they ship.

What you'll need

• Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience.
• A field relevant to the role, as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience.
• Engineered autonomous or sensing systems in the field (drones, ground robots, automated vehicles, or RF, radar or optical detection sensors): selected, integrated or secured them for an operation other people relied on, and verified what they actually do against real targets or runs rather than a datasheet.
• Integrated systems you did not build (vendor APIs, SDKs, appliances, machine and sensor telemetry) into a platform that outlives any one of them.
• Read and review code, design the data systems behind security tooling, and build automation (often with AI coding agents) using Git and code review.
• Done this work hands-on for data centers, critical infrastructure or a large hardware fleet.
• Designed inside a regulatory or safety constraint (aviation, spectrum, privacy, machine safety or similar) and can show the decision it drove.
• Owned a domain end to end: set the approach, carried it through with vendors, site operators, partners and authorities, and run it as something people depend on every day.

Nice to have

• Remote pilot certification (for example FAA Part 107) and experience flying beyond visual line of sight under a waiver or exemption.
• Experience with counter-drone (counter-UAS) detection, airspace surveillance or air traffic data systems.
• Experience running a robot, drone or automated-vehicle fleet in an industrial, logistics or data center setting: fleet management, mission planning, safety cases.
• Experience securing embedded, operational technology or robotic systems: device identity, network segmentation, update control, logging.
• Experience with physical security operations at large sites, with law enforcement or aviation authorities, or at sites you did not fully control: cloud, colocation or GPU cloud operators.
• Built AI agents or automation that replaced recurring manual work.

Details

• Location: San Francisco, CA; remote applicants in the US considered.
• Regular travel to data center sites, which are critical infrastructure.
• Location-based hybrid policy: staff expected in an office at least 25% of the time, and some roles may require more.
• Visa sponsorship available, though not for every role and candidate.