Senior Manager, Compute Accounting

About the role

As a Senior Manager, Compute Accounting at Anthropic, you will own the end-to-end accounting for our compute and cloud infrastructure spend, ensuring accurate financial reporting and robust controls as we scale. You'll be responsible for the complete lifecycle of compute cost accounting—from contract review and technical accounting assessment, through accruals, prepaids, accounts payable reconciliation, expense classification, and commitment tracking. This role requires deep expertise in accounting for compute usage, strong technical accounting judgment, and the ability to build scalable processes, controls, and accounting policy in a high-growth environment, with a strong appetite for process transformation and automation.

You'll partner directly with Engineering, Legal, Procurement, and Finance & Strategy to ensure the accounting implications of our compute contracts are understood before commitments are made, and that costs are captured accurately and in compliance with our agreements. As Anthropic's compute footprint expands rapidly across multiple cloud service providers, you'll play a critical role in establishing the financial controls, accounting policy, and processes that enable us to manage compute spend worth enormous sums at our scale with precision and confidence. You'll also serve as a key point of contact with external auditors and mentor accounting professionals across the Compute Accounting team.

Key responsibilities

• Own the complete accounting lifecycle for compute and cloud infrastructure expenses, ensuring accurate and timely recording of all costs through monthly close, reconciliations, accruals, prepaids, journal entries, and flux analysis
• Review and interpret cloud service provider and infrastructure contracts to ensure proper accounting treatment, commitment tracking, and compliance with contractual terms
• Apply technical accounting expertise to complex compute infrastructure arrangements under ASC 842—including embedded-lease identification, lease vs. service classification, measurement, modifications, and reassessments
• Partner with Engineering, Legal, Procurement, and Finance teams during contract negotiation and execution to ensure accounting implications are understood before commitments are made
• Scope and formulate accounting policies governing how compute costs are recognized, classified, and amortized across an expanding portfolio of cloud service provider arrangements
• Design and implement accrual and prepayment processes that accurately reflect the timing and nature of cloud infrastructure costs, including capacity reservations, savings plans, and committed-use discounts
• Track and reconcile commitment-based agreements, ensuring proper recognition and disclosure of multi-year purchase obligations
• Lead accounts payable and vendor statement reconciliation efforts, working with cloud service providers to resolve discrepancies and ensure billing accuracy
• Build scalable processes and controls that can grow with the organization, and develop reporting and monitoring systems to provide visibility into compute spending patterns and trends
• Serve as a key point of contact with external auditors on compute cost accounting and commitment disclosure matters
• Collaborate with and mentor accounting professionals across the Compute Accounting team, and serve as the subject matter expert on compute accounting matters for cross-functional partners
• Lead process transformation and automation initiatives—redesigning close workflows, building automated data pipelines and reporting, and leveraging AI tooling—and manage cross-functional projects from scoping through delivery

Minimum qualifications

• CPA (or equivalent) with a deep understanding of GAAP and strong technical accounting skills
• Significant experience accounting for cloud service or compute infrastructure expenses, including review of associated contracts
• Working knowledge of ASC 842 as applied to compute, infrastructure, or data center arrangements (embedded leases, lease vs. service classification)
• Experience with cloud service provider cost structures and the unique challenges of accounting for consumption-based services
• Ability to translate complex contractual terms into proper accounting treatment, and to communicate the financial statement impact of decisions to non-finance stakeholders in clear, simple terms
• Proven experience building accounting processes, controls, and policy in high-growth environments
• Proficiency with modern ERP systems (NetSuite, Workday, Oracle, or similar)

Preferred qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive accounting experience
• Experience mentoring and developing accounting professionals
• A track record of leading process transformation, automation, or finance systems projects from scoping through delivery
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to dive deep into large datasets to identify issues and opportunities
• Comfort with cross-functional partnership in fast-paced environments where priorities can shift quickly
• SQL and BigQuery proficiency, enabling direct data analysis and validation against source systems
• Python skills for building automation and analytical tools
• Experience at cloud service providers, data center operators, or technology companies with consumption-based or usage-based business models
• Background combining Big 4 accounting or advisory experience with industry roles at technology companies
• Exposure to infrastructure lease or asset structures, including colocation, GPU clusters, networking equipment, or data center buildouts
• Track record of implementing automated reconciliation and reporting solutions
• Familiarity with commitment-based purchasing agreements and their accounting implications
• Proficiency with AI-assisted tools (including Claude) for enhancing financial analysis, memo drafting, and close automation
• Experience supporting rapid growth and scaling initiatives