Anthropic is building out an Education Labs team under Kristen Swanson's leadership, with two newly posted roles offering salaries between $300,000 and $405,000. The hiring push signals that the company behind Claude is putting real resources behind research into how people develop lasting skill with AI - not just how they engage with it in the moment.
Swanson announced the move on LinkedIn, where she said the Education Labs team is exploring how people can learn AI "in ways that build fluency alongside agency." Both positions - an education researcher and a design engineer - are listed in San Francisco and New York City, with staff expected to work from an office at least 25% of the time. Anthropic says it can sponsor visas, though not for every role or candidate.
Two roles built around capability, not clicks
The design engineer will be the second technical builder on a small team studying how AI changes human capability and shipping features based on that research. The role sits between research, product building and interaction design, with an expectation to build end-to-end prototypes and translate findings on skill development into shipped product.
The education researcher position is the team's first dedicated research post. Anthropic wants someone who can design and run mixed-methods studies on how people develop real skill with AI. The researcher will build and validate instruments, measures and evaluation methods for AI fluency, then work with engineers and designers to turn those findings into product experiments, curriculum and model-level improvements.
The company is seeking candidates from learning sciences, education, cognitive science, human-computer interaction, educational psychology or related fields. Python, data analysis and experience with large language models are listed as relevant technical skills. Anthropic describes the role as a hands-on research post embedded in a team that builds and ships, not a standalone academic position.
What Education Labs won't optimize for
Anthropic's job listing is unusually direct about its priorities. Education Labs is "skeptical of tutorials, onboarding flows, and engagement metrics," the company said. Instead, the team is interested in experiences that make users "progressively more capable, curious, and empowered over time."
This framing matters because it draws a clear line between helping people learn and simply keeping them on a platform. The team's focus on AI fluency and capability-building suggests Anthropic is betting that long-term user competence will matter more than short-term engagement as AI for Education moves beyond basic tool access.
Swanson's path to Anthropic
Swanson joined Anthropic as a Member of Technical Staff in December 2025. Her background spans research, design, customer insight and user education. At Okta, she held senior roles including Senior Vice President of Design & Research. She previously spent more than seven years at Slack, where she served as Vice President of Customer Insights and Director of Learning and User Education, among other roles.
She was also Founder and Chair of the Edcamp Foundation Board from 2010 to 2017 and sits on the board of Develop for Good. Both roles in Education Labs are tied to work on AI fluency and learning tools connected to Claude AI Courses and related experiments.
Swanson said applying through the listed roles is "the best way to be considered," adding that she is not able to reply to every message about the vacancies. Applications are open through Anthropic's careers pages.
Why this matters for education professionals
When a major AI company posts education research and design roles at $300,000 to $405,000, it recalibrates what the market thinks education expertise is worth. These are not content development or instructional design jobs bolted onto a product team - they are core research and engineering roles focused on how people learn with AI over time.
For educators and learning researchers, the job descriptions offer a window into what Anthropic considers unsolved. The company is looking for people who can build measures for AI fluency, run studies on skill development and ship findings into real products - all while steering clear of engagement metrics as a proxy for learning. That combination of research rigor and product pragmatism is rare, and the salary range reflects it.
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