Anthropic will pay you $320,000 a year to build AI — and it goes against the 'AI killing jobs' narrative

Artificial intelligence isn’t just replacing jobs — it’s creating new ones, and some come with six-figure salaries.

Anthropic PBC, the company behind the Claude family of AI tools, is offering up to $320,000 a year (1) for experienced software engineers to help build and refine its systems — an example of how the "AI is killing jobs" narrative may be overstated.

Research from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Wilbur Xinyuan Chen, and Suraj Srinivasan and Saleh Zakerinia from Harvard Business School (2), suggests the shift is about job evolution rather than elimination. While routine, repetitive tasks are more vulnerable to automation, demand is growing for analytical, technical and creative roles, particularly those that involve working alongside AI.

"Rather than solely eliminating jobs, generative AI creates new demand in augmentation-prone roles, suggesting that human-AI collaboration is a key driver of labor market transformation," Srinivasan said in the Harvard Business Review.

That leaves workers in an in-between phase: as new opportunities emerge, uncertainty about the future of jobs still exists.

Even as six-figure AI roles make headlines, unease around the technology is growing. For some workers, the concern is less about job security and more about whether adapting at this stage in their careers is worth the time and effort.

Luke Michel, who spent decades in digital publishing and most recently worked as a content strategist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said he chose to retire earlier than planned at 68 after being offered a package last year. For him, the challenge was keeping up with the technology.

"The time and energy you have to devote to learning a whole new vocabulary and a whole new skill set, it wasn't worth it," he told the Wall Street Journal (3).

His experience reflects a broader tension in the workforce. While many employees feel pressure to adapt, most haven't fully embraced AI yet — about 63% say they rarely or never use it in their jobs, according to Pew Research Center (4).

At the same time, companies are already rethinking how work gets done. Marc Benioff said last year that Salesforce cut roughly 4,000 (5) customer support roles because of AI, while Microsoft (6) reduced its workforce by about 15,000. Amazon (7) has laid off around 30,000 employees over the past six months, and earlier this month, Oracle cut thousands more.

This shift is starting to take shape across the broader labor market. A 2025 MIT (8) study found that AI technical capability can cover “cognitive and administrative tasks spanning 11.7% of the labor market,” in industries including finance, health care and professional services. Economists are increasingly warning that what we're seeing now may only be the early stages, with the most disruptive effects still on the horizon.

"I don't think A.I. has hit the labor market yet, and I don't think it's radically changed corporate productivity yet, either, but I think it's coming," Daniel Rock, a University of Pennsylvania economist who has studied the economic impact of artificial intelligence, told the New York Times (9).

Read More: Here’s the average income of Americans by age in 2026. Are you keeping up or falling behind?

The changes aren't hitting every sector the same way. Laura Ullrich, director of economic research for North America at Indeed, told CNBC (10) that white-collar roles are more likely to see major disruption, while hands-on jobs, such as nursing or construction, remain harder to replicate.

Even with high-profile layoffs across tech, Ullrich said, "the probability of losing your job has not gone up all that much." In many cases, recent cuts reflect a post-pandemic reset, as companies that rapidly expanded during the hiring boom scale back to more sustainable levels (11).

At the same time, the kinds of roles companies are hiring for is shifting. Positions like full-stack software engineers are increasingly at the center of AI development. In the Anthropic job posting, the role is described as working to "understand new model capabilities and redefine what is possible for users in the world of LLMs — and how to build it." The role requires about five years of experience, which is not entry-level but far from executive, and still offers a highly competitive salary. It's a sign that mid-career, AI-adjacent skills are becoming especially valuable.

While opportunities are growing, they're not always accessible. New graduates in particular are facing the toughest entry-level job market since the pandemic, with underemployment hitting 42.5% (12) — its highest level since 2020 — making it harder to break into these emerging fields.

Still, the broader data suggests the labor market hasn't been fundamentally reshaped, at least not yet. A 2025 report from Yale Budget Lab (13) found little evidence that AI has significantly disrupted the overall labor market.

"Overall, our metrics indicate that the broader labor market has not experienced a discernible disruption since ChatGPT's release 33 months ago, undercutting fears that AI automation is currently eroding the demand for cognitive labor across the economy," the researchers wrote.

The way work gets done is shifting, and those who adapt early may have an edge. One of the most effective ways to stay relevant is to start using AI tools in your current role, rather than avoiding them. Whether it's automating repetitive tasks, analyzing data faster or brainstorming ideas, becoming comfortable working alongside AI can make your skill set more valuable.

Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer at Google X, wrote on LinkedIn (14), "AI will not replace you, but someone who knows how to use it will." He added that the future "belongs to those who stay curious, ethical and aware."

For those looking to go a step further, building even a basic understanding of how AI tools work through courses, certifications or hands-on experimentation can open the door to higher-paying, AI-adjacent roles.

At the same time, it's worth focusing on skills that are harder to automate. Work that relies on critical thinking, communication, leadership and creativity tends to be more resilient, especially when paired with technical literacy.

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Greenhouse (1); Harvard Business Review (2); The Wall Street Journal (3); Pew Research Center (4); Los Angeles Times (5); The Guardian (6),(7); MIT (8); The New York Times (9); CNBC (10); CNBC (11); Federal Reserve Bank of New York (12;) Yale Budget Lab ( 13); LinkedIn (14)

This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Anthropic will pay you $320,000 a year to build AI — and it goes against the 'AI killing jobs' narrative

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