Real Estate Manager Jobs in California

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

Anthropic's Global Workplace & Real Estate team is delivering a rapidly expanding global portfolio — including full-building offices at the scale of ~450,000 SF that combine commercial kitchens, executive briefing centers and event space, high-end amenities, and the elevated power, cooling, and security infrastructure our work requires. We're hiring a Real Estate Construction Manager to lead the technical delivery of these projects from pre-construction through closeout and to serve as our primary technical counterpart to general contractors, design teams, and specialty vendors. This is a hands-on construction leadership role, not a design role. You will own how our projects get built: delivery method and contracting strategy, GC selection and oversight, MEP and specialty-systems coordination, cost and schedule control, and commissioning. Executing the design direction is set by the Global Head of Real Estate & Workplace and our architects. You will also lead and develop a team of project managers delivering across the global portfolio. This role reports to the Global Head of Real Estate & Workplace.

Key Responsibilities

Pre-construction & technical delivery:

- Lead pre-construction on complex buildouts: constructibility and design/drawing reviews, MEP and structural coordination, estimating support, value engineering, and development of the GMP or bid package.
- Recommend and own the delivery method and contracting strategy for each project (e.g., GMP, lump sum, CM-at-risk, design-assist), matching the approach to scope, schedule, and risk.
- Read and interpret architectural, structural, and MEP drawings and specifications; surface gaps, conflicts, and risk before they reach the field.
- Coordinate technically demanding scopes — commercial kitchens (Type I hoods, make-up air, grease and UL300 fire-suppression systems, utility upsizing), high-performance AV and acoustics for executive and event spaces, server/IDF rooms with redundant power and supplemental cooling, elevated power density, and integrated physical security.
- Manage permitting and inspections with authorities having jurisdiction across multiple markets and labor environments.

Construction execution, quality & closeout:

- Oversee construction from mobilization through closeout across multiple concurrent projects, holding general contractors accountable to schedule, budget, safety, and quality.
- Run the technical processes that keep a job on track: RFIs, submittals and shop drawings, ASIs, and BIM/clash coordination across trades; lead owner-architect-contractor and trade-coordination meetings.
- Conduct site visits to monitor progress, safety, and quality control; enforce inspection protocols and punch-list management.
- Drive commissioning and closeout — systems commissioning (including kitchen exhaust/MUA balancing, BMS, and life-safety), TCO/CO, as-builts, O&M manuals, warranties, attic stock, and owner training.
- Ensure compliance with local building codes, ADA requirements, and Anthropic's sustainability goals.

General contractor, vendor & contract management:

- Serve as the primary point of contact for general contractors, subcontractors, and external project managers, holding them to clear communication and accountability.
- Lead GC selection end to end: pre-qualification/RFQ, RFP/ITB, bid leveling and scope normalization, scope-gap detection, and award — and structure the contract (GMP fee, general conditions/requirements, allowances, contingencies, qualifications, and exclusions).
- Negotiate and administer contracts with contractors, vendors, and consultants; manage GC performance throughout construction, including schedule adherence, change-order management, safety compliance, and closeout.
- Determine which trades and specialty vendors to carry under the GC vs. hold owner-direct, and manage critical long-lead vendors (kitchen equipment, AV, architectural millwork, switchgear/generator).
- Develop and maintain landlord and property-management relationships to facilitate approvals and ongoing operations.

Cost & commercial controls:

- Build and own detailed budgets by trade/CSI division — separating hard costs, soft costs, FF&E, technology, allowances, and escalation — and manage design, construction, and GC contingencies deliberately.
- Review and approve budgets, change orders, and invoices, including schedule-of-values setup, pay-application review (e.g., AIA G702/G703), retainage, and lien waivers, providing professional pushback to protect Anthropic's interests.
- Govern the change-order process (PCO to CO, markups, substantiation) and distinguish legitimate changes from scope gaps the contractor should have carried.
- Lead value engineering that protects scope and design intent; maintain cost forecasting and reporting throughout each project.

Team leadership:

- Directly manage and develop a team of Real Estate / Construction Project Managers delivering projects across the global portfolio.
- Set technical standards, playbooks, and performance expectations; balance workload across the team by project complexity and development goals.
- Coach the team through complex technical and commercial problem-solving; review progress, identify blockers, and course-correct.
- Foster a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing, and structure the function to support rapid growth.

Stakeholder management & communication:

- Partner closely with internal stakeholders — Security, IT, Facilities, Finance, and business teams — to ensure technical and operational requirements are built into project plans.
- Create executive-level presentations and reporting on project status, budget, schedule, and risk, with clear recommendations.
- Craft clear communications to the broader employee population about office changes, construction impacts, and workspace enhancements.

Minimum Qualifications

- Hold a Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, Real Estate, or a related field.
- Bring deep, hands-on construction expertise — reading and interpreting architectural, structural, and MEP drawings and specifications, and running the field from them.
- Command construction delivery methods and contract structures — GMP, lump sum, cost-plus, and design-assist — and the mechanics of change-order management.
- Have delivered technically complex scopes — e.g., commercial kitchens, high-end client/amenity and event spaces, data/server rooms with redundant power and cooling, and integrated security systems.
- Are strong in pre-construction — constructibility review, estimating, value engineering, and bid leveling.
- Command cost and commercial controls — budgeting by division, schedule of values, pay-application review, change-order governance, and contingency management.
- Have managed budgets for projects ranging from $50M to $300M+, and multiple complex projects concurrently.
- Have navigated permitting and inspections across multiple jurisdictions, in union and non-union environments.
- Have directly managed and developed project managers through full project lifecycles, and can scale a delivery function for rapid growth.
- Are proficient with construction PM software (e.g., Procore) and CPM scheduling tools (e.g., Primavera P6 or MS Project), plus MS Office.
- Possess excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to tailor messages from the C-suite to the general population.
- Are willing to travel 25–50% to various office locations.

Preferred Qualifications

- Have 10+ years in corporate real estate construction management, general contracting, or a related field, with a track record of delivering complex office buildouts on time and on budget.
- Hold PMP (or equivalent) and OSHA 30 certifications.
- Possess LEED accreditation or demonstrated experience with sustainable building practices.
- Have commissioning experience on technically complex base-building or tenant systems.
- Bring an established network of general contractors, subcontractors, and specialty vendors.
- Have international project experience and an understanding of building standards and permitting across different countries.
- Have worked in high-growth technology environments, particularly those scaling from 500 to 5,000+ employees.

The annual compensation range for this role is listed below. For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role.

Annual Salary

$275,000 - $315,000 USD

Logistics

Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience

Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience

Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position

Location-based hybrid policy: Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices.

Visa sponsorship: We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed. Research shows that people who identify as being from underrepresented groups are more prone to experiencing imposter syndrome and doubting the strength of their candidacy, so we urge you not to exclude yourself prematurely and to submit an application if you're interested in this work. We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.

Your safety matters to us.

To protect yourself from potential scams, remember that Anthropic recruiters only contact you from @anthropic.com email addresses. In some cases, we may partner with vetted recruiting agencies who will identify themselves as working on behalf of Anthropic. Be cautious of emails from other domains. Legitimate Anthropic recruiters will never ask for money, fees, or banking information before your first day. If you're ever unsure about a communication, don't click any links—visit anthropic.com/careers directly for confirmed position openings.

How We're Different

We believe that the highest-impact AI research will be big science. At Anthropic we work as a single cohesive team on just a few large-scale research efforts. And we value impact — advancing our long-term goals of steerable, trustworthy AI — rather than work on smaller and more specific puzzles. We view AI research as an empirical science, which has as much in common with physics and biology as with traditional efforts in computer science. We're an extremely collaborative group, and we host frequent research discussions to ensure that we are pursuing the highest-impact work at any given time. As such, we greatly value communication skills. The easiest way to understand our research directions is to read our recent research. This research continues many of the directions our team worked on prior to Anthropic, including: GPT-3, Circuit-Based Interpretability, Multimodal Neurons, Scaling Laws, AI & Compute, Concrete Problems in AI Safety, and Learning from Human Preferences.

Come work with us!

Anthropic is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and a lovely office space in which to collaborate with colleagues.

Guidance on Candidates' AI Usage:

Learn about our policy for using AI in our application process.