Founding Engineer

Clera

$120K — $250K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Proven ownership of product features from ideation to production with minimal guidance.
  • Hands-on experience designing and deploying AI-driven systems, especially in agent architecture and context engineering.
  • Experience in ensuring AI system production readiness, including monitoring and performance tuning.
  • Strong proficiency in Go and clean code practices; full-stack capabilities in TypeScript/Vite.
  • Demonstrated product sense focused on user outcomes rather than solely technical solutions.
  • Ability to thrive in ambiguity, requiring no PM direction to identify product needs.
  • Experience building from scratch, whether a startup or significant project.

Responsibilities

  • Own significant portions of the product from user insight to deployment.
  • Continuously build and improve agentic systems for accuracy and reliability.
  • Engage with users to identify pain points and develop feature solutions.
  • Ship full-stack applications as needed, utilizing Go, TypeScript, and Vite.
  • Promote AI-first development methodologies, focusing on coding agents and automation.
  • Rapidly review code while upholding high quality standards across the codebase.

Benefits

  • Generous equity package reflective of a founding-level position.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a founding engineering role at a YC-backed enterprise AI startup building an agentic operating system that deploys AI agents at scale for businesses. You'll operate with CTO-level ownership - taking vague problems from user insight all the way to production - and directly shape both the product and the company's trajectory.
What You'll Do
  • Own large parts of the product end-to-end, from user insight through to production deployment.
  • Build and continuously improve agentic systems, making them more accurate, reliable, and powerful.
  • 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 solve real problems.
  • Ship full-stack when needed, including Go backend and Vite/TypeScript frontend work.
  • Champion AI-first development practices - coding agents, automation - and scale yourself through them.
  • Review code quickly while maintaining high standards across the codebase.
What We're Looking For
  • Proven ability to own features end-to-end from ideation to production with minimal hand-holding.
  • Hands-on experience designing and deploying AI-driven systems, including agent architectures, context engineering, and tool use.
  • Experience ensuring production readiness of AI systems - monitoring, observability, performance tuning, and reliability.
  • Strong proficiency in Go and care for clean, maintainable code; comfortable going full-stack in TypeScript/Vite when needed.
  • Deep product sense with a track record of building for user outcomes rather than engineering's sake.
  • Comfort - and enthusiasm - for ambiguity; you don't need a PM to tell you what to build.
  • Experience building something from scratch (a startup, a meaningful side project, a shipped feature).
  • Familiarity with modern AI coding paradigms (e.g. coding agents, AI-assisted development tools).
  • Background in AI research or experience at an AI product/coding startup is a plus.
  • US work authorization required - visa sponsorship is not available.
Compensation & Benefits
  • Salary: $120,000 - $250,000 USD annually
  • Generous equity commensurate with a founding-level role
  • Visa sponsorship: not available
Location

On-site in San Francisco, California, USA.

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