Trade Compliance Counsel
Anthropic
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
We are hiring a Trade Compliance Counsel to help build and mature our sanctions and export controls compliance programs at Anthropic In this role, you will provide strategic legal advice on U.S. and international trade compliance matters, including economic sanctions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and export controls administered by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and other regulatory bodies. You will play a critical role in shaping Anthropic's approach to trade compliance as we scale, advising on the development of robust compliance programs that support our mission to develop AI systems that are safe, beneficial, and understandable.
Responsibilities:
- Provide legal counsel on U.S. and international sanctions and export control laws and regulations, including OFAC sanctions programs, the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and other applicable trade control regimes
- Advise on the application of sanctions and export controls to Anthropic's products, services, business operations, and commercial transactions
- Support the development and maturation of Anthropic's sanctions and export controls compliance programs, including policies, procedures, and controls
- Partner with Integrity, Compliance, Security, Finance, People, and Operations teams to implement scalable trade compliance solutions as the company grows
- Advise on sanctions and export control considerations in customer and third-party transactions, including contract negotiations and due diligence
- Support customer-facing teams in addressing trade compliance queries from commercial partners and enterprise customers
- Monitor legal and regulatory developments in sanctions and export controls, and advise leadership on their implications for Anthropic's business
- Manage engagement and communications with relevant government agencies, including BIS, OFAC, and other authorities as needed
- Support internal investigations and voluntary disclosures relating to potential trade compliance matters
- Develop and deliver training to employees on sanctions and export control requirements
- Advise on the intersection of trade compliance and national security law in coordination with Anthropic’s national security legal counsel, including on matters where sanctions or export control considerations overlap with broader security concerns relating to frontier AI
You may be a good fit if you have:
- A JD and active membership in at least one U.S. state bar
- At least 10-12 years of experience advising on U.S. sanctions and export control laws, with a strong understanding of OFAC sanctions programs, the EAR, and related regulatory frameworks
- Experience advising technology companies on trade compliance matters, particularly in areas such as cloud computing, AI, semiconductors, or other emerging technologies subject to U.S. export controls
- Experience building or maturing trade compliance programs in a high-growth or scaling environment
- Ability to provide practical, business-oriented legal advice in a fast-paced environment, including in areas without established precedent
- Experience engaging with government authorities such as BIS, OFAC, and DDTC, including on licensing, interpretive guidance, or enforcement matters
- Ability to excel at cross-functional collaboration and effectively communicate complex legal concepts to technical, compliance, and business teams
- Comfort with ambiguity and sound judgment in novel or evolving regulatory areas
- Passion about responsible AI development and Anthropic's mission
Strong candidates may have:
- A mix of law firm and in-house experience
- Experience at a hyper-scaling tech company or in a fast-paced environment
- Familiarity with non-U.S. export control and sanctions regimes (e.g., EU, UK)
- Experience at or working with closely with OFAC, BIS, DDTC, or other government agencies responsible for administering trade controls
Role-specific policy: For this role, we expect all staff to be able to work from our San Francisco, DC or New York office at least 3 days a week, though we encourage you to apply even if you might need some flexibility for an interim period of time.
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.
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.
Your safety matters to us. To protect yourself from potential scams, remember that Anthropic recruiters only contact you from @anthropic.com email addresses. In some cases, we may partner with vetted recruiting agencies who will identify themselves as working on behalf of Anthropic. Be cautious of emails from other domains. Legitimate Anthropic recruiters will never ask for money, fees, or banking information before your first day. If you're ever unsure about a communication, don't click any links—visit anthropic.com/careers directly for confirmed position openings.
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