MTS at Anthropic

1."Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic": the deliberately flat job title that became San Francisco's most efficient status signal, at house parties and on dating apps alike.

Asked what he does. "MTS at Anthropic." The table went quiet, respectfully.

01Origin

Frontier AI labs revived the old research-lab convention of giving nearly everyone the same title: Member of Technical Staff. The flattening was meant to be egalitarian - no ladder, no levels, just the work. The city, being the city, immediately converted it into the opposite: a four-word aristocracy.

The meme is that "MTS at Anthropic" now does what "consultant at McKinsey" did for an earlier civilization - a title that says nothing about what you do and everything about what you're worth. It covers everyone from a new grad to a legend of the field, which is precisely the flex: the ambiguity is load-bearing. On the timeline, the bit runs that half of SF's dating profiles read MTS at Anthropic and the other half are trying to date one.

Natural habitat: a Hayes Valley demo night. Natural prey: everyone who has to explain their actual job title. See also the compensation-adjacent lifestyle isms it enables - nobody says single until Series B with an MTS badge.

02Notable sightings

Aadit Sheth · @aaditsh · view on X
Everyone is talking about Karpathy joining Anthropic. The part I keep thinking about is the title. Member of Technical Staff. Same title every engineer at the company gets. Same one the Workday CTO got when he joined. Same one the Instagram CTO got. Karpathy ran Tesla Autopilot. Co-founded OpenAI. And he walks in with the same title as someone who started last month. I think this is one of the most underrated decisions in tech right now. It kills title inflation before it starts. Nobody can negotiate for "VP of AI" or "Chief Scientist" because those titles don't exist. It filters out people who care more about the LinkedIn update than the work. The narrative it sends is clear... People join Anthropic for the mission, not the title. And when someone like Karpathy accepts that, it reinforces the message for every future hire. If you're building a company or a team, think about what your title structure is actually saying. It's messaging. It tells candidates what you value before they ever talk to a recruiter. I see more companies doing this now btw.

Deedy · @deedydas · view on X
The median base Member of Technical Staff salary at Anthropic and OpenAI in the last two years are both ~$310k. This doesn't include equity grants. Median engineers at these companies are well clearing 7 figures a year.

djcows · @djcows · view on X
BREAKING: Haaland has joined Anthropic as Member of Technical Staff

More sightings on X →

03Spread the ism

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04See also

Single until Series B