Head of Payroll & Equity

San Francisco, CA | Seattle, WA · San Francisco · USD 570,000-610,000 / year · Hybrid · Posted Oct 2, 2026

At a glance

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.

Anthropic is seeking an experienced leader to oversee global equity administration and payroll operations.
The role involves leading teams responsible for equity compensation administration and global payroll operations to ensure accuracy, compliance, and scalability.
The person will manage senior functional leaders and partner closely with Legal, Tax, HR, and Accounting.

Lead and develop the equity administration and payroll teams, setting strategy, priorities, and operating cadence across both functions
Own the control environment for equity and payroll: design and document to public-company standards
Oversee scaling to public-company standards across both functions
Drive systems strategy across the compensation platforms, from equity to payroll, and surrounding integrations, ensuring a coherent architecture as we scale
Serve as the primary escalation point and executive interface for equity and payroll matters with Legal, Tax, HR, and external providers
Oversee international expansion of both functions, including new-country payroll setup, cross-border equity compliance, and mobility programs
Partner with Accounting on stock-based compensation and payroll accounting, ensuring clean handoffs for close, reporting, and audit
Drive automation and continuous improvement of manual processes across both teams through technology solutions
Build headcount and resourcing plans that scale with the business

15+ years across equity compensation and/or payroll operations, with significant experience leading senior functional leaders
Operated equity and payroll functions to a public company standard
Deep familiarity with equity management platforms (such as Shareworks or E*TRADE) and Workday payroll, with experience owning cross-system architecture
Built and scaled global operations across multiple jurisdictions
Strong people leader who develops senior functional experts
Thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments and default to building scalable processes over adding headcount
Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience

Hold CEP (Certified Equity Professional) or CPP (Certified Payroll Professional) certification
Experience with international mobility programs, worker secondments, and cross-border tax considerations
Led complex system implementations or migrations at scale

Location-based hybrid policy: expect all staff to be in one of the offices at least 25% of the time, though some roles may require more time in the offices.