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Founding Engineer

Clera

On-site
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Staff
Principal
$120k–$250kPosted 1w ago

Real job — pulled straight from Clera’s careers page · Verified August 3, 2026 · No reposts.

Job description

Clera is hiring a Founding Engineer — a full-time, based in San Francisco, CA role ($120k–$250k). Apply directly on Clera's careers page below.

Founding Engineer

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

About the Role

We're an early-stage, fast-growing enterprise AI platform (agentic operating system for businesses) that has achieved strong product-market fit and is growing revenue rapidly. Backed by Y Combinator and prominent angel investors from the AI and SaaS world, we have thousands of AI agents deployed at scale-up startups and enterprise companies today.

This is a founding engineer role — you'll operate at near-CTO level, taking vague problems all the way to shipped product with no hand-holding. You'll be backend-heavy and AI-native, but fully capable of going full-stack when needed. If you've ever wanted to shape a product and company from the ground up, this is that seat.

What You'll Do

  • Own large product areas end-to-end — from user insight through to production

  • Build and continuously improve our agentic systems: accuracy, reliability, and capability

  • Work at the frontier of AI engineering — context engineering, tool use, and agent architectures

  • Talk directly to users, understand their pain points, and scope features that actually solve problems

  • Ship full-stack when needed: Go backend, React + Vite (TypeScript) frontend

  • Champion AI-first development practices — coding agents, automation, and ruthless self-scaling

  • Review code quickly while maintaining high standards across the codebase

  • Design and work with APIs (REST and/or gRPC) in microservices architectures

  • Own CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, deployment workflows, and production observability

What We're Looking For

Must-haves:

  • Proven production experience building backend services in Go (Golang) — this is a dealbreaker

  • Authorized to work in the United States without visa sponsorship

  • Experience building frontend applications with React and TypeScript

  • Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and production monitoring/observability

  • Experience building and consuming APIs (REST and/or gRPC) in microservices environments

  • 0–3 years of professional software engineering experience (full-stack or equivalent)

Strong pluses:

  • Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or equivalent) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)

  • Prior experience with AI infrastructure, prompt engineering, model deployment, or agent orchestration

  • Experience designing and shipping AI-driven products; familiarity with agentic AI systems, LLMs, or AI agents

  • Previous startup experience or a founding/early engineer background

  • Experience with relational databases (Postgres/MySQL) and NoSQL, with solid understanding of data storage trade-offs

  • AI research background or experience at an AI tooling/coding startup

  • Former founder — or someone who has built something meaningful from scratch (startup, side project, shipped feature)

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

You thrive if you:

  • Are a sharp, autonomous problem-solver who doesn't need a PM to decide what to build

  • Have deep product sense and build for users, not for code's sake

  • Are obsessed with using and building AI-first development tools (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, coding agents)

  • Love clean, maintainable Go and hold high standards in code review

  • Thrive in ambiguity and move fast without sacrificing quality

Compensation & Benefits

  • Salary: $120,000 – $250,000 USD annually, reflecting the outsized impact of this founding role

  • Equity: Generous equity package commensurate with a founding-level position

  • Unlimited AI tooling budget — we practice what we preach

  • A seat at the table: you will shape the product and the company's direction

Location

  • On-site in San Francisco, CA

  • Visa sponsorship is not available — candidates must be authorized to work in the United States

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Frequently asked questions

What is the salary for Founding Engineer at Clera?

The estimated salary range for Founding Engineer at Clera is $120,000 - $250,000 USD per year.

What skills are required for Founding Engineer at Clera?

The required skills for Founding Engineer at Clera include: Go, React, TypeScript, CI/CD, REST, gRPC, Docker, Kubernetes, LLM, PostgreSQL, MySQL.

What is the seniority level for Founding Engineer at Clera?

Founding Engineer at Clera is a Staff / Principal level position.

How do I apply for Founding Engineer at Clera?

You can view the full description and apply for Founding Engineer at Clera on EchoJobs: https://echojobs.io/job/clera-founding-engineer-dvnxb.