39% of Anthropic Staff Now Use This Bell Labs-Era Job Title

Thirty-nine percent of Anthropic employees listed "member of technical staff" on their LinkedIn profiles in December 2025, the highest share among the largest AI labs, according to Stanford University researchers Nick Bloom and Gideon Slocum Moore.

OpenAI followed at 31%, with xAI at 26%, the researchers told The New York Times. Across OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Microsoft AI, the use of the title climbed 50% in the past year.

What does the title actually mean?

The label covers a wide range of roles. At OpenAI, "member of technical staff" can describe a senior engineer with more than a decade of experience, a cofounder, or a junior hire early in their career.

OpenAI and Anthropic have framed the title as a way to collapse the distinction between researchers and engineers, placing them on equal footing rather than privileging PhD-holding researchers as traditional labs did. The terminology is also a deliberate callback to Bell Labs, which used the same title for decades.

The title is not confined to staff bios. Multiple AI companies have begun using the phrase in their public job listings, a likely attempt to project a particular image to applicants and signal the kind of talent they want to attract.

Why are AI companies adopting it now?

McGill University assistant professor Elizabeth Eley sees the title as a deliberate signal to candidates who understand the industry's culture. "I think it's saying something," she said. "It is sending a signal: 'You come and work here, and you're part of this team that does this innovative, technical work. We don't need job titles.'"

Eley, who has studied unusual job titles in a paper published in the Academy of Management Review, argues the label serves as a branding tool. "What's distinctive about it is that it's not distinctive at all," she said.

Is the title really an equalizer?

The title may look like a repudiation of the traditional org chart. It can also obscure who does what inside an AI company at a moment when those firms face heightened scrutiny over their operations and the safety of their systems.

Some firms have moved away from military-style terms such as "forward deployed engineer" for similar reasons, Eley said. The shift toward "member of technical staff" fits a broader pattern of unconventional titles such as "chief storyteller" and "happiness hero" that are nearly impossible to parse from the outside.

Eley's research finds that these labels can shape who applies. Sometimes a novel title reflects a genuine need — there is no standard name for a new function. In other cases, the title is mostly symbolic and serves as a brand marker.

Who applies for these jobs?

That opacity may be the point. "It's hard for just anyone to understand what it is — which I think, frankly, [employers] kind of want," Eley said. "They want people to not really know exactly what the job title is. If you're in the know, or you love the company, then you will apply."

In other words, the title functions as a filter. Job seekers who recognize the label understand the cultural code; those who do not are unlikely to apply.

What's next for the title?

"It's like this cultural code for someone that works at an innovative AI company," Eley said. "So other places will start using it as well."

Expect the label to spread beyond the four labs where it now dominates and into the recruiting pages of every startup that wants to signal it belongs to the same club.