Anthropic commits $100M to train 10,000 Frontier Deployed Engineers

A program aimed at the enterprise talent gap

Anthropic says every enterprise is racing to bring AI into its organization, but the people with the skills to make it work inside a business have become the hardest talent to find. According to the company, a small group of deeply skilled people drives an outsized share of what AI delivers inside the customers it works with.

The Academy is built from Anthropic's own work deploying Claude inside large enterprises and the professional services organizations that serve them. Steve Corfield, Global Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Anthropic, said the company wants graduates "to set the standard for how AI gets built inside a business." He added that Claude Frontier Academy trains people the way Anthropic's own engineers learn.

The first cohorts include engineers from Accenture, Bain, Capgemini, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Deloitte, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley and Novo Nordisk, among others.

How the Frontier Deployed Engineer Residency works

The Academy's first program is the Frontier Deployed Engineer Residency. Anthropic says it follows the medical model for building expertise: doctors learn from practicing physicians, train on real cases and are assessed before they practice alone. Residency engineers likewise learn from practitioners, practice on realistic cases and are assessed on their work before earning the credential.

The target is agentic systems that change how a business runs, from redesigned processes to new products and services. The program is meant for hands-on software engineers with strong fundamentals, a record of building with LLMs, experience helping others adopt AI, and a habit of tackling their business's most important problems. Prior experience building AI agents is not required.

• Organizations nominate their strongest engineers, each arriving with a named Claude project to lead on return.
• The program starts with a multi-day in-person session with Anthropic engineers and licensed instructors, including a simulated enterprise deployment from use case selection through security review to handover.
• The session ends with a graded practical on a new scenario. Those who pass earn the Claude Resident Engineer badge.
• Badge holders move into a 12-week residency, leading a real Claude use case at their own organization with support from Anthropic engineers and their cohort.
• A second assessment follows. Those who pass earn the Claude Frontier Deployed Engineer badge, with the first expected in early 2027.

Cohorts, partners and eligibility

Cohorts are running now in San Francisco, New York and London, and the program is to grow toward 10,000 engineers by the end of 2027. Participation is by nomination. Organizations can ask their Anthropic account team or Partner Account Manager whether they are eligible.

Several participating firms commented in the announcement. Accenture said the residency tests judgment against a simulated enterprise deployment rather than technical skills in isolation. Capgemini said clients care less about certification counts or training volume than about knowing firsthand how to solve real-world problems. Commonwealth Bank of Australia said its teams have produced up to 3x more code changes in the past year. Novo Nordisk said it uses Claude Science in its R&D workflows and wants its engineers to receive the same hands-on training behind Anthropic's most successful deployments.

Building on the Claude Partner Network

The Academy builds on the Claude Partner Network, where, according to Anthropic, professionals across 46,000 firms have earned more than 175,000 Claude certifications. Nearly 4,000 people have completed Basecamp, an immersive program that teaches the same curriculum Anthropic's Applied AI teams receive when they onboard.

Anthropic describes the Academy as aimed at the people who will lead the work, and calls training 10,000 Frontier Deployed Engineers "the first step of many." For enterprises and consultancies, the program offers a route to deepen in-house Claude expertise through nomination, though access depends on Anthropic's eligibility decisions.