Community Engagement Manager, Data Centers (Virginia & West Virginia)

Overview

Anthropic is hiring a Community Engagement Manager to serve as its on-the-ground presence in the Virginia and West Virginia communities where its data centers are sited, built, and operated, building trusted relationships with local officials, community organizations, and residents across site selection, construction, and operations.

What you'll do

• Build and maintain trusted, sustained relationships with Virginia boards of supervisors, city and town councils, and planning commissions, West Virginia county commissions and municipal officials, state economic development agencies, community groups, civic leaders, educational institutions, and workforce partners in the markets you cover
• Develop and execute a community engagement strategy for each of your markets, spanning site selection, pre-development, construction, and ongoing operations
• Build external coalitions, host education and listening sessions, and design local solutions that deliver real benefits to the communities where we operate
• Represent Anthropic in public forums, town halls, planning hearings, community events, and local media
• Monitor community sentiment and local political dynamics, and advise internal teams on risks, opportunities, and the right pace and posture for engagement, including in markets where data center development is already well established and community questions about its cumulative effects are active
• Partner with the Real Estate and Infrastructure team to bring community input into how projects are planned, communicated, and delivered, not just how they are announced
• Work with the Communications team to develop proactive, locally relevant messaging
• Coordinate charitable giving, community investment, and economic development commitments in your markets, including managing nonprofit partner relationships
• Partner with the Energy and Sustainability team to explain our approach to environmental stewardship and respond to questions about power, water, noise, transmission, and land use
• Build a community engagement playbook and repeatable processes that scale as Anthropic's infrastructure footprint grows

What you'll need

• Experience in community affairs, public affairs, economic development, government relations, local or state government, or a closely related field
• Direct experience working for or engaging with local governments and a broad set of community stakeholders on behalf of large infrastructure, construction, energy, or technology projects, with a working understanding of how local politics and community dynamics actually play out
• A skilled relationship and coalition builder who earns trust with a diverse group of stakeholders, and who maintains relationships through difficult conversations
• The ability to represent a company credibly in public settings, including town halls, hearings, and press interviews
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to turn a complex operational plan into plain language that a local official or reporter can understand and respond to
• The ability to work independently, get up to speed quickly on complex policy issues, and manage multiple concurrent engagements across different markets without losing track of any of them
• Based in Virginia or West Virginia or willing to relocate to one of them, and prepared to travel regularly across both states
• 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
• Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position

Nice to have

• 7+ years of experience in community engagement specifically on data center, utility, energy, or large-scale industrial infrastructure projects, or in local government
• Familiarity with land use, zoning, and permitting processes at the county and municipal level, including rezoning and special use permit hearings in Virginia
• Experience with community concerns around data center siting, such as noise, transmission lines, water, and proximity to residential areas
• Experience managing corporate social responsibility programs
• Established relationships with economic development, workforce, or civic organizations in the markets this role covers, including in Appalachian and energy-transition communities
• Experience working with real estate, legal, communications, and policy teams at the same time
• A genuine interest in the communities where you work, not just the projects you are managing

Details

• Location: Virginia and West Virginia; Remote-Friendly, United States
• Travel regularly within Virginia and West Virginia, up to 50% of the time, and occasionally to other Anthropic data center markets
• Location-based hybrid policy: staff are expected in an office at least 25% of the time, and some roles may require more
• Compensation: Annual salary $265,000 to $295,000 USD
• Visa sponsorship is available, but not guaranteed for every role and candidate