Director, Accounting Systems Architect

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 seeking an experienced Finance Systems Architect to join our Finance Systems team at Anthropic. In this role, you will lead the technical strategy and team responsible for Corporate Accounting, Finance Operations, and Treasury systems, with Workday Financials as the core platform. You will manage a team of Systems Engineers and Business Systems Analysts supporting the full operational finance technology stack—including GL, AP, payroll, T&E, and treasury—and pioneer automation strategies that leverage both SaaS solutions and AI, including Claude. This is a strategic leadership role that will directly shape how Anthropic's finance operations scale. You will work at the intersection of technical architecture, people leadership, and innovation, partnering with Accounting, Finance Operations, and Treasury leadership to build a world-class, intelligent financial systems foundation. Responsibilities: Systems Architecture & Technical Strategy: Own the technical roadmap for Corporate Accounting, Finance Operations, and Treasury systems; establish design standards, data governance frameworks, and integration best practices across Workday Financials and related platform Team Leadership: Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing team of Systems Engineers and Business Systems Analysts; manage workload allocation, prioritization, and career development Integration Design & Oversight: Architect and oversee integrations across the finance technology landscape—including Workiva, payroll, T&E, invoice processing, payments, and banking platforms—ensuring seamless data flow, system reliability, and compliance with security requirements Automation & AI Strategy: Define and execute the automation strategy for finance operations, pioneering the use of Claude and AI-powered solutions to transform workflows from reconciliations to close processes to payment operations Stakeholder Partnership: Serve as the primary technical partner to Corporate Accounting, Finance Operations, and Treasury leadership, translating business needs into system solutions and communicating roadmaps to senior leadership Compliance & Controls: Partner with IT, Security, and Internal Audit to ensure systems meet SOX compliance requirements; maintain documentation of controls, data lineage, and audit artifacts You may be a good fit if you: Have 15+ years of experience in finance systems, ERP implementation, or enterprise architecture roles, with at least 5 years of hands-on Workday Financials experience Have 5+ years of people management experience, leading technical teams in fast-paced environments with a track record of developing talent and building high-performing teams Have a proven track record of designing and delivering complex system integrations using APIs, middleware, and ETL tools Are skilled at developing and executing automation strategies in finance and accounting contexts, with measurable impact on efficiency and accuracy Possess strong understanding of end-to-end finance processes including General Ledger, accounts payable, payroll, T&E, treasury operations, and financial reporting Have excellent communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders and influence at the leadership level Demonstrate strategic thinking with the ability to zoom out to architecture decisions and zoom in to implementation details Are comfortable with ambiguity and the pace of a rapidly scaling organization, balancing strategic initiatives with operational support needs Strong candidates may also have: Background in accounting, finance, or CPA certification with understanding of GAAP reporting requirements and SOX compliance Experience at high-growth technology companies, ideally through significant scaling or finance transformation Familiarity with AI/ML concepts and enthusiasm for applying them to finance operations; experience piloting or scaling AI-powered automation Experience with treasury systems including bank connectivity, payment platforms, and cash management solutions Experience with additional finance systems such as Workiva, NetSuite, Pigment, Coupa, or payroll and T&E platforms Technical proficiency with SQL, Python, or scripting languages for data analysis, integration support, or automation development Experience integrating Workday with external data platforms such as BigQuery or cloud data warehouses Experience implementing Workday Financials from the ground up or leading major ERP transitions Knowledge of Workday Prism Analytics, Accounting Center, or advanced reporting capabilities 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. Annual Salary: $265,000—$315,000 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. 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