Head of Accounting Policy
Anthropic · San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA ·
- Seniority
- C level
- Employment
- Fellowship
- Category
- Finance
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
Anthropic is growing quickly, and the transactions we enter into are often unlike anything the accounting literature directly contemplates. We're hiring a senior leader to own accounting policy and technical accounting.
In this role, you will be the company's authority on how we account for what we do: usage-based and enterprise revenue arrangements, large compute and infrastructure transactions, complex financing and equity instruments, and M&A and investment activity. You'll build the technical accounting function from a strong foundation into one that operates at public-company grade — establishing the whitepaper and position-memo discipline that lets us take well-supported positions on novel, first-of-kind transactions, defend them with our external auditors (including their national office), and be ready for public-company-grade reporting when the company needs it.
This is a high-judgment, high-trust role. You'll work closely with the Controller and CFO organization, Legal, Tax, and deal teams across the company, and you'll often be the first accountant in the room when a new kind of transaction is being designed.
Key responsibilities
- Own the company's accounting policy framework: establish, document, and maintain US GAAP accounting policies across all significant areas, and keep them current as the business and the standards evolve
- Serve as the lead technical advisor on novel and first-of-kind transactions, including usage-based and enterprise revenue arrangements (ASC 606), large compute and infrastructure commitments, complex financing and equity instruments, and M&A and investments
- Build and institutionalize a whitepaper and position-memo discipline: rigorous, well-cited technical memos that document the company's accounting conclusions and stand up to auditor and regulator scrutiny
- Lead technical discussions with our external auditors and SEC, including engagement on complex or unsettled issues, and drive timely resolution of technical matters
- Prepare the company for public-company-grade external reporting: SEC-style financial statements, disclosures, and the supporting close and reporting processes and controls
- Monitor, assess, and lead adoption of new FASB standards and SEC rules, including impact assessments, implementation plans, and cross-functional execution
- Partner with Legal, Tax, FP&A, and business and deal teams early in transaction design, so accounting consequences are understood — and where appropriate, shaped — before deals are signed
- Advise on equity, financing, and capital-markets transactions, including the accounting for complex instruments and arrangements
- Lead, and develop a high-caliber technical accounting and accounting policy team as the function scales
- Support reporting to company leadership and the Audit Committee on significant accounting positions, judgments, and estimates
- Help design and strengthen controls over complex-area accounting in support of a SOX-ready control environment
- Represent the company externally where useful, including in comment letters and engagement with standard setters and industry groups
Minimum qualifications
- Active CPA license
- Public accounting tenure at a top firm that reached at least Director, Managing Director, or Partner — or national office Senior Manager selected into the SEC's Professional Accounting Fellow program
- Deep US GAAP expertise and strong command of SEC reporting requirements
- Experience leading a technical accounting and/or accounting policy function at a high-growth technology company
- Demonstrated ability to research, conclude, and document positions on complex and novel accounting issues, and to defend them with external auditors
- Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain complex accounting matters to non-accountants and senior leadership
Preferred qualifications
- 15+ years of combined experience across public accounting and industry
- Public accounting experience at a senior level, such as Managing Director or Partner, at a well-regarded firm, or comparable experience (for example, having served as an SEC Professional Accounting Fellow)
- Service at the US Securities and Exchange Commission — in particular, the Office of the Chief Accountant's Professional Accounting Fellow (PAF) program (an approximately two-year fellowship), or comparable senior SEC staff roles such as Associate or Deputy Chief Accountant in the Office of the Chief Accountant or senior roles in the Division of Corporation Finance
- FASB, EITF, or other standard-setting exposure (task force membership, fellowships, or substantive comment-letter and liaison work)
- Public speaking on technical accounting topics, such as remarks at the AICPA Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments or similar venues
- National office experience at a major firm (accounting standards, accounting consultation, or professional practice groups)
- Experience preparing a private company for public-company-grade reporting
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
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
Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position
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 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.