Director, Technical Accounting – M&A and Investments

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: We are seeking a Director of Technical Accounting – M&A and Investments to join our Finance team at Anthropic. In this role, you will serve as the company’s principal accounting authority for mergers, acquisitions, strategic investments, and other complex capital transactions. You will own the technical accounting lifecycle for every deal — from term-sheet diligence through purchase accounting, opening balance sheet, and post-close measurement-period adjustments — and you will build the function, playbooks, and team required to execute these transactions with public-company rigor. As Anthropic continues to scale rapidly and deploy capital into acquisitions, minority investments, joint ventures, and novel commercial structures, you will be the decisive voice on structuring alternatives, consolidation outcomes, and financial statement impact. You will partner directly with Corporate Development, Legal, Tax, Treasury, FP&A, and executive leadership to ensure that deal economics are accurately reflected under US GAAP and that positions are defensible to external auditors, valuation specialists, and future regulators. This is a builder-leader role: you will establish the M&A and investments accounting function largely from the ground up, recruit and develop a high-performing team, and stand up the controls, valuation governance, and close-ready documentation expected of a large accelerated filer. If you thrive on being in the room when deals are shaped — and then making the accounting land cleanly — we want to hear from you. Responsibilities: Serve as the company’s principal technical accounting authority for business combinations, asset acquisitions, strategic equity investments, joint ventures, divestitures, and related financing and equity structures Lead accounting due diligence on prospective transactions; evaluate structuring alternatives and advise Corporate Development and executive leadership on GAAP, control, and earnings implications before terms are finalized Own end-to-end purchase accounting: identification of the acquirer, determination of the acquisition date, measurement of consideration transferred (including contingent consideration, rollover equity, and replacement awards), recognition and measurement of identifiable assets and liabilities, and goodwill Direct the consolidation assessment for every investee and structured arrangement, including VIE identification, primary-beneficiary analysis, and ongoing reconsideration events Oversee the investment portfolio accounting model — determining and monitoring classification across consolidation, equity method, the measurement alternative, and fair value through earnings — and govern observable-price-change and impairment reviews Manage third-party valuation specialists; review and challenge purchase price allocations, intangible asset valuations, contingent consideration fair values, and impairment analyses Author and defend technical accounting memoranda for each transaction; serve as the primary point of contact with external auditors on M&A, investment, and consolidation matters Build and lead the M&A and Investments Accounting team — define roles, hire, mentor, and set the operating cadence — while remaining a hands-on reviewer on the most judgmental areas Design and implement the deal-accounting operating model: diligence checklists, Day-1 close playbooks, opening balance sheet procedures, measurement-period tracking, integration accounting workplans, and SOX-ready controls over non-routine transactions Drive post-close integration accounting, including conforming accounting policies, system/ledger onboarding, wor