Forward Deployed Engineer

Clera

$150K — $250K *
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of full-stack or backend engineering experience.
  • Strong understanding of systems thinking and production ownership.
  • Proficiency in TypeScript, React, Bun, Effect-TS, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, and AWS.
  • Experience with complex, distributed systems in production.
  • Self-directed problem-solving skills, able to deliver independently.
  • Genuine interest in AI agent systems.

Responsibilities

  • Own core systems including agent platform, infrastructure, and the integrations runtime.
  • Establish engineering patterns that influence future hires' work.
  • Ship to production continuously, working closely with founders.
  • Shape the system architecture across orchestration, runtime, infrastructure, and tooling.
  • Support the development of self-healing systems and agent orchestration.

Benefits

  • Early-stage equity.
  • Visa sponsorship available if required.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a rare early-engineer opportunity at a seed-stage startup building an agentic integration platform for the real economy. Specialized AI agents gather requirements in plain English, generate integration code, test it, deploy it, and keep it alive in production - autonomously, end-to-end.

You'll be one of the first engineers on the team, owning core systems alongside the founders and setting the technical foundation that every future hire builds upon. This is not a chatbot or a thin LLM wrapper - the agents do real work with real consequences in production.

The platform includes agent orchestration across specialized agents, a durable execution runtime (think: a mini Vercel for integrations), self-healing systems, and a knowledge base that compounds with every integration shipped.
What You'll Do
  • Own core systems end-to-end - agent platform, infrastructure, and the integrations runtime.
  • Set the engineering patterns - the architecture and conventions you establish will underpin everything every future hire builds.
  • Ship to production constantly - work directly with founders in tight feedback loops, moving fast with high ownership.
  • Shape the entire system - within your first year, your fingerprints will be on the full stack: orchestration, runtime, infra, and tooling.
What We're Looking For
  • Strong full-stack or backend engineering background with a bias toward systems thinking and production ownership.
  • Comfort with the tech stack: TypeScript, React, Bun, Effect-TS, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, AWS.
  • Experience building or operating complex, distributed systems in production.
  • Self-directed - you can pick up an ambiguous problem, define the right solution, and ship it without hand-holding.
  • Genuine interest in AI agent systems and what it means to build reliable, consequential automation.
  • Prior experience at high-caliber engineering organizations (e.g., big tech, top-tier startups, or strong consulting/services backgrounds) is a plus.
Compensation & Benefits
  • Salary: $150,000 - $250,000 USD annually, depending on experience.
  • Early-stage equity.
  • Visa sponsorship is available where required.
Location

This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. The team works together in person - remote work is not available for this position.

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