Workday’s CTO Joins Anthropic as Technical Staff Member
April 9, 2026 – 2:39 pm
Peter Bailis, who served as Workday’s Chief Technology Officer since May 2025, left the company last month to take on a new role at Anthropic. He will now be a member of technical staff, focusing on reinforcement learning engineering. This move signifies a shift from a C-suite position to an individual contributor role, but brings Bailis closer to the technical forefront and directly involved in building AI models.
According to reports by Business Insider, his new designation as a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) at Anthropic reflects a flat technical hierarchy, mirroring titles used at OpenAI. MTS roles span various levels of seniority and compensation, with base salaries ranging from approximately $300,000 to $405,000 at Anthropic and up to seven figures with equity grants for senior positions at OpenAI.
Bailis’ decision highlights the allure of direct involvement in cutting-edge AI research and development, even if it means trading organizational authority for greater technical immersion. With Anthropic’s significant growth and over 1,000 enterprise customers generating substantial revenue, Bailis brings valuable expertise to tackle the complex engineering challenges posed by the company’s rapid expansion.