Senior Manager, Corporate Accounting Operations

About the Role

We are looking for a Corporate Accountant to join Anthropic's Corporate Accounting Operations team. Reporting to the Director of Accounting Operations, you will lead a team of accountants while staying hands-on — reviewing and preparing close materials, setting technical standards, and owning your own portfolio of accounts through close.

This is a build role. You will write and own the policies and SOPs your team operates against, design the controls framework, and continuously improve the processes underneath it — including using Claude and other tools to automate work that doesn't need to be manual. We are looking for someone who has done this before: built accounting infrastructure from scratch in high-growth environments and wants to do it again at one of the most important companies in the world.

Responsibilities:

Close Operations

• Own a portfolio of accounts through month-end and quarter-end close — including reconciliations, journal entries, and variance commentary
• Drive close acceleration by identifying bottlenecks and implementing process changes that reduce cycle time without sacrificing accuracy
• Ensure all close deliverables are consistently audit-ready, with clear documentation of positions and supporting evidence
• Oversee SOX control preparation and execution across your accounts; review control evidence and own timely remediation of any gaps

Technical Accounting & Policy

• Write, own, and maintain technical accounting policies and SOPs across your domain — drafting, evolving, and operationalising them as the business changes
• Review technical accounting memos prepared by your team; ensure conclusions are well-supported and consistent with US GAAP
• Collaborate with Technical Accounting on new or evolving standards and translate guidance into procedures the team can execute
• Own external audit responses within your domain; ensure timely delivery of supporting schedules and audit-ready workpapers

Process Improvement & Automation

• Identify repetitive, rules-based tasks across the team's workflows and build scalable solutions — including leveraging Claude — to automate or replace them
• Document workflows and controls in a way that supports knowledge transfer, audit evidence, and system scalability
• Contribute to ERP and systems implementations, translating accounting requirements into clear specifications and test criteria

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with Finance & Strategy, Tax, People Operations, Procurement, and Facilities to keep accounting aligned with business activity in real time
• Translate complex accounting positions into plain language for non-finance stakeholders
• Support new entity setup and geographic expansion by establishing accounting processes for new jurisdictions as Anthropic grows

Team Leadership & Review

• Coach and develop a team of highly agile performers - providing timely, specific feedback that raises the technical and operational bar over time
• Hire and onboard accountants as the team grows; set clear expectations and build a culture of precision and continuous improvement
• Serve as the first escalation point for complex transactions and accounting judgments across your team's workstreams

Areas of experience include:

• Close management and acceleration; process improvement; SOX control design and operation
• Real estate and lease accounting (ASC 842); fixed assets, capitalisation policy, and depreciation
• Payroll accounting; stock-based compensation (ASC 718); commissions (ASC 340-40); contingent worker accounting
• Cash and investments; debt accounting; IDSE, Intangibles, prepaids, accruals, and period-end cut-off controls

You May Be a Good Fit If You

• Hold an active CPA licence
• Have around 10 years of progressive accounting experience, combining public company experience (in audit or in-house) with time at a high-growth or startup environment
• Have a Big 4 audit background — a strong signal of technical depth and audit-readiness standards
• Have managed or meaningfully coached more junior accountants and are ready for a role with direct reports
• Are comfortable owning accounting policies and SOPs end-to-end: writing them, maintaining them, and being accountable for how the team applies them
• Can move fluidly between reviewing your team's work and doing the work yourself — equally comfortable in a reconciliation spreadsheet and a review meeting
• Have experience designing and operating controls in a SOX environment
• Thrive in ambiguity and can structure work, reach defensible conclusions, and document them clearly even when the answer is not obvious
• Are energised by building from scratch rather than maintaining what already exists
• Have a clear point of view on how AI tools can eliminate low-value accounting work — and want to put that into practice
• Communicate clearly with non-accounting partners and can explain a complex position in plain language

Strong Candidates May Also:

• Have public company accounting experience, including exposure to financial reporting cycles 
• Bring deep expertise in two or more specialty areas: ASC 842 lease accounting, ASC 718 stock-based compensation, commissions accounting, payroll accounting, or fixed asset accounting
• Have led or played a significant role in an ERP implementation — particularly in a high-growth environment where accounting requirements were evolving mid-project
• Have experience building accounting infrastructure from the ground up: chart of accounts design, allocation methodology, or close cadence structure
• Bring familiarity with AI or infrastructure-heavy business models where cost attribution and capitalisation decisions are complex
• Have managed accounting through significant organisational change — new entity setup, geographic expansion, or business model evolution