Anthropic· Legal· New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; Washington, DC
Commercial Counsel, Networking & Datacenter Operations
Classified Tasks (14)
Automate 0%Augment 14%Human-Only 86%
Augment (2)
AI assists, human decides
Build and own the network and O&M contract template library, SLA-credit playbooks, and intake and approval workflows
administrative
Train Procurement, Network, and Site-Ops partners to apply contract templates and workflows at scale so teams can self-serve standard transactions
leadership
Human-Only (12)
Requires human judgment
Lead legal execution for dark fiber, IRU, IP transit, peering, subsea-cable capacity, network-equipment procurement, and O&M, facilities-management, commissioning, decommissioning, and resilience contracting
leadership
Negotiate dark fiber and IRU agreements (long-haul and metro), wavelength and lit-capacity services, IP transit and peering (settlement-free and paid), internet-exchange participation, subsea-cable capacity and landing-party agreements, carrier-hotel and meet-me-room agreements, and cross-connect MSAs
communication
Support the telecom regulatory interface, including FCC Section 214 authorizations, submarine-cable landing licenses, Team Telecom (EO 13913 Committee) review, FCC subsea-cable security and IRU rule compliance, private-carrier status determinations, and rights-of-way, franchise, and pole-attachment matters
operational
Coordinate with Infrastructure Security Legal on the national-security overlay for subsea capacity and landing-party participation
communication
Structure and negotiate O&M and integrated-facilities-management contracts, critical-spares and break-fix agreements, smart-hands SLAs with colo landlords, and disaster recovery and resilience contracting
operational
Own asset disposition, decommissioning, and media-sanitization terms, and manage data-hall fit-out and tenant-improvement work in coordination with Infrastructure Security and Datacenter Legal
operational
Support property, builder’s-risk, business-interruption, and equipment-breakdown insurance placement with Treasury/Risk
operational
Coordinate with Infrastructure Security Legal on guard-force, vendor-personnel, and physical-security flow-downs in O&M and facilities-management contracts
communication
Manage relationships with specialized outside counsel and ensure their work product aligns with Anthropic’s commercial objectives
leadership
Manage SLA-credit claims, outage and root-cause-related disputes, warranty and break-fix claims, and pre-litigation vendor escalations in coordination with Litigation
operational
Serve as the primary legal owner ensuring external work product aligns with Anthropic’s commercial objectives and integrates with the compute and availability strategy
leadership
Work in close partnership with Datacenter Legal, Strategic Technology & Procurement, Infrastructure Security, Treasury/Risk, Public Policy, and other internal stakeholders to execute infrastructure-related legal work
communication
Job description
About Anthropic 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. About the role As Commercial Counsel, Networking & Datacenter Operations for Compute and Infrastructure at Anthropic, you’ll lead legal execution for the connective tissue and the steady-state running of Anthropic’s Infrastructure. This role spans dark fiber and IRU agreements, IP transit and peering, subsea-cable capacity, network-equipment procurement, and the Operations & Maintenance (O&M), facilities-management, commissioning, decommissioning, and resilience contracting that keeps production sites online once the keys are handed over. You’ll work in close partnership with Anthropic teammates in Datacenter Legal, Strategic Technology & Procurement, Infrastructure Security, Treasury/Risk and Public Policy, in addition to specialized outside counsel. You will serve as the primary legal owner ensuring external work product aligns with Anthropic’s commercial objectives and integrates with our overall compute and availability strategy. Responsibilities: Negotiate dark fiber and IRU agreements (long-haul and metro), wavelength and lit-capacity services, IP transit and peering (settlement-free and paid), internet-exchange participation, subsea-cable capacity and landing-party agreements, carrier-hotel and meet-me-room agreements, and cross-connect MSAs Support the telecom regulatory interface, including FCC Section 214 authorizations, submarine-cable landing licenses and Team Telecom (EO 13913 Committee) review, the FCC’s 2025 subsea-cable security and IRU rules, private-carrier status determinations, and rights-of-way, franchise, and pole-attachment where Anthropic builds first-party fiber — working in close coordination with Infrastructure Security Legal on the national-security overlay for subsea capacity and landing-party participation Structure and negotiate O&M and integrated-facilities-management contracts, critical-spares and break-fix agreements, smart-hands SLAs with colo landlords, and disaster recovery and resilience contracting Own asset disposition, decommissioning, and media-sanitization terms, and data-hall fit-out and tenant-improvement work, in coordination with Infrastructure Security and Datacenter Legal Support property, builder’s-risk, business-interruption, and equipment-breakdown insurance placement with Treasury/Risk, and coordinate with Infrastructure Security Legal on guard-force, vendor-personnel, and physical-security flow-downs in O&M and facilities-management contracts Work closely with specialized outside counsel, ensuring their work product aligns with Anthropic’s commercial objectives Build and own the network and O&M contract template library, SLA-credit playbooks, and intake and approval workflows so Network and Site-Ops teams can self-serve standard transactions; train Procurement and operations partners to apply them at scale Manage SLA-credit claims, outage and root-cause-related disputes, warranty and break-fix claims, and pre-litigation vendor escalations, in coordination with Litigation Collaborate with the