10 Anthropic engineering leaders
Anthropic's CTO heads this group of engineering leaders, next to the heads of capacity, safeguards, platform, model optimization, data and forward deployed engineering. Eight hold current Anthropic roles and two held engineering leadership roles there until 2024 and 2025. Their titles fit a team deciding how to split inference, infrastructure and safety work, or how to staff engineers who sit with customers.
Professionals to explore
Blake J.
LinkedInExperience: Senior Director of Software Engineering · Anthropic
From 2021 to 2024 Blake J. was Senior Director of Software Engineering at Anthropic, leading an applied AI engineering team. At Amazon, Blake was Director Software Engineering (2018–2021) and Senior Software Engineering Manager (2015–2018). Blake speaks from a former seat on building an applied AI engineering team inside the lab.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Brian Delahunty
LinkedInExperience: Head of Engineering · Anthropic
As Head of Engineering at Anthropic from 2023 to 2025, Brian Delahunty built out the engineering org, including Inference, Infrastructure, Product, Productivity and TPM, and drove the launch of the Claude 3 model family. Brian has been VP of Engineering at Google since 2025 and was Head of Engineering, Seattle Site Lead at Stripe (2017–2021). A good pick for how a lab's engineering teams get carved up as it grows.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Lisa Cohen
LinkedInExperience: Head of Data · Anthropic
Lisa Cohen has led data science and analytics engineering for Claude and Anthropic overall as Head of Data since 2025, a scope covering product, API, sales, marketing, capacity and research. Lisa was Director, Data Science & Engineering - Gemini, Google Assistant, Search Platforms at Google (2023–2024) and Senior Director of Data Science at Twitter (2022–2023). Useful for how engineering decisions get measured.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Nikhil Saxena
LinkedInExperience: Head of AI Safeguards Tech · Anthropic
Since 2024 Nikhil Saxena has been Head of AI Safeguards Tech at Anthropic, a role described as AI Safety for Claude. Stripe roles were Head of Risk Engineering (2022–2024) and Head of Engineering, Risk Intelligence (2019–2022), and Yelp roles were Senior Engineering Manager, Trust and Safety ML (2018–2019) and Engineering Manager, Spam and Abuse Detection (2016–2018). Those roles make Nikhil a fit for questions on misuse detection and abuse engineering.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Rahul Patil
LinkedInExperience: CTO · Anthropic
Rahul Patil has been CTO at Anthropic since 2025 and describes leading engineering there across inference, products, infrastructure and security. At Stripe, Rahul was CTO (2024–2025), Deputy CTO (2024) and Head of Infrastructure and Global Operations (2023–2024), which suits questions on running one engineering organization that covers both serving and security.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Rob Hardy
LinkedInExperience: Global Head of Forward Deployed Engineering · Anthropic
Rob Hardy took the Global Head of Forward Deployed Engineering role at Anthropic in 2026. At Notion, Rob was Head of AI Solutions & Services (2025–2026), Professional Services & Channel Lead (2024–2025) and Professional Services Lead (2024). That mix of services and forward deployed engineering roles fits questions on staffing and scoping engineers who work inside customer accounts.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Tanny Lin
LinkedInExperience: Director of Technology & Model Optimization · Anthropic
Model optimization has been Tanny Lin's focus as Director of Technology & Model Optimization at Anthropic since 2023, where Tanny designed and implemented an adversarial (red team) testing framework to reduce potential misuse of AI models. OpenAI roles were Deputy Director of Model Engineering (2020–2022), Senior Machine Learning Engineer (2018–2020) and Machine Learning Engineer (2016–2018).
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Tommy Morgan
LinkedInExperience: Head of Capacity Engineering & Efficiency · Anthropic
Capacity is Tommy Morgan's area: Head of Capacity Engineering & Efficiency at Anthropic since 2024, after a Google role titled Capacity Efficiency Engineering, ML Systems and Cloud Infra (2020–2024). Tommy also held Group Manager, Technical Program Management - Strategic Programs and Initiatives at Dropbox (2019–2020). The right person for capacity and efficiency planning when demand moves fast.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Tony N.
LinkedInExperience: Director of Platform Technology · Anthropic
Tony N. has been Director of Platform Technology at Anthropic since 2021. Their LinkedIn profile describes Tony as an AI Infrastructure & Observability Expert and former core architect at OpenAI/GitHub. Tony is the person to ask about platform and observability tooling under AI workloads.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Zaven Nahapetyan
LinkedInExperience: Head of Engineering, Anthropic Labs · Anthropic
Anthropic Labs, the company's moonshots team, is where Zaven Nahapetyan has been Head of Engineering since 2025, working closely with research to turn new model capabilities into products. Zaven was Member of Technical Staff (Manager) at OpenAI (2024–2025), Co-Founder of Niche (2021–2024) and Sr. Engineering Manager at Meta (2012–2021), so speaks to moving research output into shipped products.
Is this you? Claim your profile and get paid for calls.
Choose the right perspective
For org-wide structure, start with Rahul Patil or Brian Delahunty, the current CTO and the former Head of Engineering. Tommy Morgan, Tony N. and Tanny Lin are closer to compute, platform and model optimization, while Nikhil Saxena covers safeguards and Rob Hardy covers engineers placed with customers.
Questions to take into the conversation
- 01When model demand jumps, how do you decide whether compute capacity or model efficiency work gets the engineers first?
- 02Which safeguards against model misuse should be built by a dedicated engineering team rather than by each product team?
- 03How do you set up forward deployed engineers so customer work feeds back into the core product instead of turning into one-off builds?
About this directory
This is a professional research starting point based on business profile data retrieved on . Titles and companies reflect that source snapshot; roles marked former had ended by then. Check the linked profiles for current details. Inclusion does not imply Instant Expert membership or availability.