Data Center Electrical Engineer – Design
About the role
Training and serving frontier AI models requires compute infrastructure at a scale and density that pushes past what conventional data center designs were built to handle. Anthropic's Data Center Infrastructure team is responsible for delivering that physical infrastructure — partnering with build partners, equipment manufacturers, and utilities to stand up facilities that can reliably power some of the largest accelerator clusters in the industry.
As a Data Center Electrical Engineer – Design, you'll own the electrical architecture of our facilities from the utility service entrance through to the rack — substation interface, medium- and high-voltage distribution, on-site generation and storage integration, UPS, switchgear, busway, and rack power. You'll develop and maintain the basis of design, reference architectures, and technical specifications that our build partners and A/E firms design against, and you'll be the point of technical authority when their drawings and calculations come back for review. You'll run the engineering studies — short-circuit, protection coordination, arc flash, load flow, and power quality — and you'll keep the architecture ahead of rapidly increasing rack densities and the unique load characteristics of large-scale ML training.
A central part of this role is speed-to-capacity through prefabrication: you'll shape Anthropic's offsite-manufactured electrical strategy — modular skids, e-houses, and prefabricated power assemblies — and drive its standardization across sites. You'll work closely with colleagues across the infrastructure team, with our hardware and compute teams to translate accelerator requirements into electrical design criteria, and with supply chain to qualify and diversify regional equipment vendors. Expect roughly 10–25% travel for design reviews, partner and vendor meetings, factory witness testing, and site visits to support commissioning and startup.
Responsibilities
Electrical design & engineering
Lead the electrical design of critical data center infrastructure across the US portfolio, including the utility interface and substation, site medium- and high-voltage distribution, generators, UPS, switchgear, transformers, busway, and grounding
Develop and maintain Anthropic's electrical basis of design, reference architectures, and technical specifications for critical power distribution — covering switchgear, UPS systems, PDUs, busway, and rack power delivery — producing designs that meet our reliability and maintainability requirements while staying within budgetary targets
Perform and validate engineering studies — including short-circuit, protection coordination, arc flash, load flow, and power quality analysis — and use the findings to steer topology, redundancy, equipment-selection, and protection-setting decisions
Design and plan data center hall power distribution layouts for newly allocated spaces in coordination with the telecom, mechanical and cooling design
Prefabrication & modular delivery
Drive Anthropic's prefabricated and modular electrical strategy — developing modular skids, e-houses, and prefabricated power assemblies, and partnering with external engineering and manufacturing teams on a productization roadmap that accelerates deployment and reduces onsite labor
Design for offsite manufacture and onsite assembly: define the interfaces between prefabricated components and site-built work, and the electrical interfaces and switchover points for temporary-to-permanent power sequencing
Drive standardization of modular electrical designs across sites to compress deployment timelines while preserving flexibility for site-specific constraints and evolving hardware generations
Partner, vendor & utility coordination
Work with regional vendors and manufacturers to specify and qualify major electrical equipment, and partner with supply chain to build a diversified vendor base that mitigates lead-time and single-source risk
Work with utilities and interconnection/transmission operators (e.g., ISOs/RTOs) to define site utility service and interconnection requirements, and with local authorities having jurisdiction to ensure designs comply with the National Electrical Code (NFPA 70/NEC), NFPA, IEEE, UL/ANSI, and local requirements
Work with Anthropic's hardware and compute teams to translate accelerator power, density, and power-quality requirements into electrical design criteria, and keep the reference architecture aligned with upcoming hardware generations
Present findings and design positions to internal stakeholders, build partners, and operations teams through clear reports and presentations, and defend them under challenge
Design review & quality
Review and approve electrical design packages, calculations, submittals, and shop drawings from build partners and MEP consultants; track clarifications, deviations, and exceptions against the basis of design, and hold the line on capacity, reliability, maintainability, and safety requirements
Perform technical due diligence and design reviews on data center developer and partner projects — evaluating their electrical single-lines, equipment selections, studies, and specifications against Anthropic's reliability, maintainability, and capacity requirements
Define project electrical scope and serve as the design authority on RFIs and field changes that affect design intent during procurement and construction
Support factory acceptance testing, commissioning, and startup — reviewing test procedures and results against design intent, participating on site for key milestones, and closing as-built changes back into the reference design
Manage concurrent projects across multiple geographies
Continuously improve Anthropic's internal electrical design standards, tooling, and delivery practices, and act as a technical leader within the engineering group and across the internal and external teams that support our data centers
You may be a good fit if you
Have 10+ years of electrical engineering experience in mission-critical facilities, with substantial time spent on data center or other high-availability electrical distribution design — from concept through construction documents and into commissioning support
Have deep familiarity with US electrical codes and standards — including the National Electrical Code (NFPA 70/NEC), NFPA 70E, IEEE standards (e.g., 1584 for arc flash), and UL/ANSI equipment standards (e.g., UL 891, UL 1558) — and with utility interconnection processes
Have hands-on experience producing and reviewing electrical construction documents, single-line diagrams, and equipment specifications, and can interpret data center floor plans and technical layouts with confidence
Have strong knowledge of power distribution and cooling infrastructure in high-availability data center environments
Are fluent in power systems analysis and comfortable running or critically reviewing studies in tools such as SKM, ETAP, or EasyPower
Understand critical power topologies (2N, N+1, distributed redundant, block redundant) and can articulate the trade-offs between them for different reliability and cost targets
Have working knowledge of HV/MV substations, on-site generation, and energy storage integration, and how each shapes the overall electrical architecture
Have hands-on experience with prefabricated and modular data center electrical infrastructure — design for offsite manufacture, modular skids/e-houses, and the interfaces between prefabricated components and onsite assembly
Have worked directly with electrical equipment manufacturers, A/E consultants, and contractors, and can evaluate products and designs on technical merit, not just datasheet claims
Hold a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related field, or have equivalent practical experience; Professional Engineer (PE) licensure is valued but not required
Communicate clearly with both technical peers and non-specialist stakeholders, and are comfortable defending a design position under scrutiny from partners and internal reviewers
Strong candidates may also have
Experience owning the electrical basis of design or reference architecture for a hyperscale or large colocation program, and driving its adoption across multiple sites or by external build partners
A track record building modular prefabricated products in the electrical or mechanical scope of a data center, and driving designs toward offsite manufacturing
Background in medium-/high-voltage distribution, on-site generation, or battery energy storage system (BESS) integration, and how those shape the building-side electrical design
Exposure to liquid-cooled infrastructure and its implications for electrical room layout and load distribution
Prior work at a hyperscaler, colocation provider, or MEP consultancy serving large data center clients
Direct project experience delivering data centers in multiple US markets (e.g., Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Ohio, Oregon)
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:
$320,000—$405,000 USD