Anthropic's New Headline for Andrej Karpathy: MTS
TL;DR · AI Summary
Anthropic has appointed Andrej Karpathy and other prominent figures as MTS (Technical Employee), sparking controversy. MTS is a flat position title designed to prevent headhunters from poaching talent, enhance cultural identity, and break down departmental walls. However, some comments suggest that this approach may be superficial and potentially disadvantageous to young engineers in their career development.
Key Takeaways
- Anthropic defines MTS as a flat position title aimed at preventing headhunters f
- The salary range for MTS at Anthropic is between $300,000 and $405,000, higher t
- Comments suggest that this approach may be superficial and potentially disadvant
Outline
Jump quickly between sections.
Introduces the controversy surrounding Andrej Karpathy's new role as an MTS at Anthropic.
Explains what MTS means and its origins.
Describes the salary range for MTS positions at Anthropic and OpenAI.
Lists reasons why MTS is supported, such as preventing headhunters, enhancing cultural identity, and breaking down departmental walls.
Analyzes the opposition to MTS, particularly its potential impact on young engineers' career development.
Summarizes the pros and cons of MTS and expresses personal views.
Mindmap
See how the topics connect at a glance.
查看大纲文本（无障碍 / 无 JS 友好）
- Anthropic MTS 争议
- 定义和背景
- 防止猎头挖人
- 增强文化认同
- 打破部门墙
- 薪酬水平
- Anthropic MTS: $30万-$40.5万
- OpenAI MTS: $21万-$53万
- 支持 MTS 的理由
- 防止猎头挖人
- 增强文化认同
- 打破部门墙
- 反对 MTS 的观点
- 粉饰嫌疑
- 不利年轻工程师职业发展
Highlights
Key sentences worth saving and sharing.
MTS（技术员工）@Anthropic。
Anthropic 的MTS年薪在30万到40.5万美元之间，OpenAI的MTS年薪在21万到53万美元之间。
评论区认为这种做法存在粉饰嫌疑，可能不利于年轻工程师的职业发展。
< img id="wx_img" src="https://www.qbitai.com/wp-content/uploads/imgs/qbitai-logo-1.png" width="400" height="400">
2026-05-26 15:42:02 Source: Quantum Bit
MTS (Technical Employee) @Anthropic
Jay from凹非寺
Quantum Bit | Public Account QbitAI
What? Andrej Karpathy is just a “Technical Employee” at Anthropic?
Just opened Andrej’s new X profile update and found this extra line—
MTS (Technical Employee) @Anthropic.
Not...
Co-founder of OpenAI, Director of AI at Tesla, "Gold Medal Lecturer" in deep learning on YouTube, one of the most cited AI researchers globally...
You’re just a “Technical Employee” at Anthropic??!
Speak up, Anthropic!!
One of the earliest people to discover him, posted this without words:
Anthropic, you won’t seriously let Andrej be a technical employee, right??
It went viral, with everyone watching the story.
Andréj was surprisingly calm, commenting directly:
Anthropic did well.
It’s good that such a big company doesn’t engage in bureaucratic office politics.
A bunch of MTS (Technical Employees), aiming for a mission.
Many didn’t buy it.
Ha ha, yeah, no one needs to read what comes after “Andrej Karpathy”.
Another guy joked:
It’s interesting, if you just give him an intern title, it would be even more interesting.
Who knew Andréj used Hinton as a shield:
If I’m not mistaken, Geoff Hinton was once an intern at Google (laughs).
What is MTS??
Actually, not just Andréj. Many top talents recently joined Anthropic and OpenAI, all holding the same title—MTS (Technical Employee).
Peter Bailis.
Former Workday CTO, Google VP…
Now? At Anthropic, MTS focusing on reinforcement learning.
Mike Krieger.
Yes, he co-founded Instagram and served as its CTO.
Later left Instagram, founded his own news aggregation app called Artifact, also known as a co-founder + CTO.
In May 2024, Anthropic announced Mike Krieger’s joining with great fanfare. His initial title was quite impressive:
Chief Product Officer (CPO).
Who knew this year, he became an MTS at Anthropic…
Currently working on Claude Code.
Inevitably, he couldn’t escape the spotlight.
Too magical.
In the AI era, seemingly ordinary titles have become some of the most valuable positions in the tech industry.
So, what exactly is an MTS?
Actually, this wasn’t something Anthropic came up with. In 2023, OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman posted a thread—
When OpenAI was founded, we spent a lot of time figuring out job titles—We didn’t want to simply categorize employees as researchers and engineers.
Then, Alan Kay had a brilliant idea: "We used Member of Technical Staff at Xerox PARC back then."
We loved it so much, we adopted it directly.
But really think it’s just a regular ‘technical employee’?
This technical employee is not like any other technical employee.
A report in 2025 showed that the annual salary range for MTS at Anthropic is $300,000 to $405,000, while at OpenAI, it ranges from $210,000 to $530,000.
Member of Technical Staff, Master of Technical Staff salaries...
Say it loud and clear! With such high salaries, who cares about your title?!
But is there deeper consideration behind this? Of course.
After summarizing online, here are three main benefits—
1. Prevent headhunters from poaching.
With uniform titles, competitors can’t determine who is L7 or L5 through titles alone, making it harder to target specific employees.
In the age of AI talent hunting, this is very necessary.
2. Cultural identity.
While it might sound strange, it’s actually practical.
AI companies value research-oriented culture, unified titles flatten the hierarchy, making research implementation easier.
3. Break down department walls.
This is the most romantic point in my opinion.
Fixing someone with a label easily confines them. For example, hearing a humanities student writing code often makes people wonder—what does this person know?
But in the AI era, many skill thresholds are being broken down, creativity is the first principle.
Cross-disciplinary individuals often have larger parameter sets, making it easier to connect dots and have eureka moments.
Unified titles are more conducive to cultivating these composite talents.
That’s about it.
Sounds beautiful, right?
Indeed, but I feel it has a bit of a 'polishing' quality.
The opposing views in the comments section generally start from this angle.
On cultural aspects, netizens said:
Too awkward, too fake, too staged...
Those who claim they don’t care about titles start calling themselves vice presidents on LinkedIn once they leave (hehe).
From a more practical perspective, it may not last long.
A very intuitive fact is that throughout history, only a handful of companies managed to scale organizations without hierarchical systems.
Some well-known examples include Valve (the company behind Steam), early GitHub...
But it’s embarrassing that these cases have been controversial, criticized for not being as ideal as advertised. Flattening hierarchies can turn into hidden power dynamics, surface-level lack of bosses, but actual seniority among core circles...
Calling everyone MTS just turns these differences from explicit to implicit.
So, the strongest argument might still be preventing headhunters from poaching.
But if you think carefully, something feels off.
Can’t put my finger on it.
Until I found this comment on a similar post from last year on LinkedIn:
This pseudo-flattened hierarchy being praised as a virtue is strange. Founders clearly have hierarchies, but employees don’t know about it.
And what’s wrong with other companies contacting your employees? Employees aren’t the company’s property; each person has the right to showcase their skills.
Andréj Doesn't Care, But You Do?
After going through this discussion, I feel quite complex.
I definitely empathize more with the commenters, after all, few people are like Andréj.
Is the MTS system at Anthropic and OpenAI reasonable? Of course it is.
Flattening hierarchies, removing levels, allowing everyone to focus on technology—these ideas make sense for a mission-driven AI research company.
But it must be acknowledged that those who praise this system are often those who already don’t need titles to prove themselves.
What about a junior engineer who has worked for three years?
Those letters in the job title could be the most crucial bargaining chip when looking for work next time.
This might explain why there are so many objections in the comments section.
You call yourself Andréj, so you can write whatever title you want—
But what if you call yourself Zhang San?
Reference Links:
[1]https://x.com/karpathy/status/2058576120870789173?s=2
[2]https://www.businessinsider.com/workday-cto-trades-title-member-of-technical-staff-anthropic-openai-2026-4
[3]https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnkim5480931a8_every-technical-employee-at-anthropic-shares-activity-7275943947439415296-qh5w/
[4]https://x.com/gdb/status/2058650343244976608?s=20
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