This guide draws on 6 first-hand interview accounts from Hacker News. Candidates describe about 2 rounds on average, most often behavioral interviews, technical interviews and a take-home task.
All of them were posted under a forum handle, so we could not verify the authors’ identities.
Experienced. 2 rounds. Shared by paxys on hn, 2026-02-26
1Application essaysTake-homeWritten essays on AI safety submitted with the application.Covered: AI safety
2Values interviewBehavioralA full interview focused on the candidate's commitment to safety and ethics.Covered: AI safety, Ethics
Role not stated
Outcome not shared
Experienced. 2 rounds. Shared by paxys on hn, 2026-02-25
1Application essaysTake-homeWritten essays on AI safety submitted with the application.Covered: AI safety
2Values interviewBehavioralA dedicated round on the candidate's motivation around safety rather than pay.Covered: AI safety, Ethics
Role not stated
Not selected
unknown. 2 rounds. Shared by nejsjsjsbsb on hn, 2025-02-03
1Coding interviewTechnicalFast-paced timed coding exercise where a fully correct solution was expected.
2Values conversationBehavioralRoughly half-hour discussion probing the candidate's views on ethics.Covered: Ethics
Role not stated
Not selected
unknown. 1 round. Shared by aizk on hn, 2026-02-27
1Puzzle challengeOnline assessmentSolved part of a public CTF-style puzzle, which led to an interview invitation.Covered: Reverse engineering, Capture the flag, Machine learning
Role not stated
Outcome not shared
unknown. 6 rounds. Shared by Silviaaa on hn, 2025-08-21
1Phone screenPhone screenFind duplicate files, with follow-ups on chunk sizing, hash choice and diagnosing bottlenecks.Covered: Duplicate file detection, Hashing, I/O vs CPU bottlenecks
2CodingTechnicalBuild a multi-threaded crawler and discuss spreading it across machines.Covered: Concurrency, Web crawlers, Distributed systems
3Project deep dive and hiring managerHiring managerDetailed discussion of past projects plus behavioral questions.
4CultureBehavioralProbing conversation on AI safety and values.Covered: AI safety
5System designSystem designDesign an efficient API for serving GPU inference.Covered: GPU inference API
6Additional codingTechnicalExtra round after inconclusive results: an LRU cache decorator handling arbitrary arguments, then making it persistent.Covered: LRU cache, Python
Member of Technical Staff
Not selected
unknown. 2 rounds. Shared by blueblisters on hn, 2026-06-15
1Technical interviewTechnicalThe technical portion went reasonably well.
2Values discussionBehavioralThe interviewer was put off by the candidate's skepticism about LLM safety.Covered: AI safety
What Anthropic is hiring for now
649 open roles in our index. Advertised pay floors run $265k to $350k (median $310k, from 505 postings that state pay).
This guide draws on 6 first-hand interview accounts from Hacker News. Candidates describe about 2 rounds on average, most often behavioral interviews, technical interviews and a take-home task.
What topics does Anthropic test in interviews?
Commonly reported topics include AI safety, Ethics, Reverse engineering, Capture the flag, Machine learning, Duplicate file detection.
These guides summarize public, first-hand interview experiences shared by candidates. They describe the shape of each loop and the topics that came up, not a leaked question bank, and every experience links back to its original source. Processes change often. Treat this as directional prep, not a script.
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