Founding Engineer

Clera

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

Qualifications

  • 3 to 9 years in software engineering with production experience.
  • Ability to build projects from the ground up in startups or through significant side projects.
  • Experience with large language models (LLMs) and agent-based platforms.
  • Proficient in TypeScript, React, and Node.js for full-stack development.
  • Familiarity with AWS cloud infrastructure and PostgreSQL for database management.
  • Proven track record of handling end-to-end development across various systems.
  • Understanding of observability and monitoring strategies for production systems.

Responsibilities

  • Own the development and operational execution of the agent platform and integrations.
  • Set the engineering standards and architectural guidelines for the team.
  • Collaborate with founders to provide technical insights and leadership.
  • Deliver consistent, reliable, and observable production-ready software with measurable impact.

Benefits

  • Visa sponsorship for O-1 visa applicants.
  • On-site work environment in San Francisco, promoting in-person collaboration.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is the first engineering hire at an early-stage B2B SaaS company building an agentic integration platform with paying enterprise customers. You will own core systems end-to-end and set the engineering patterns every future hire builds on, working directly with the founders to ship production-ready software.
What You'll Do
  • Own the agent platform, infrastructure, and integrations runtime end-to-end.
  • Define the engineering standards and architectural patterns the growing team will inherit.
  • Collaborate closely with the founders, contributing technical opinion and leadership, not just code.
  • Ship to production consistently, delivering reliable and observable systems with measurable customer impact.
What We're Looking For
  • 3 to 9 years of professional software engineering experience building and shipping production systems.
  • Demonstrated ability to build something from zero to one, in an early-stage startup or a serious side project.
  • Experience integrating or building workflows around large language models (LLMs) and agent-based platforms.
  • Proficiency in TypeScript for full-stack development, React for frontend, and Node.js for backend.
  • Experience with AWS for cloud infrastructure and PostgreSQL for data storage and database design.
  • Track record of owning end-to-end feature development across frontend, backend, and infrastructure.
  • Experience implementing observability, monitoring, and tracing in production systems.
  • Experience building reliable retry and queuing patterns in distributed systems.
  • Strong computer science or engineering fundamentals, ideally from a rigorous academic background.
  • Background at an early-stage, venture-backed startup, or comparable fast-paced environment.
  • Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or US-based with a concrete relocation plan to San Francisco.
Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $150,000 to $250,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is available where an O-1 visa is a realistic path.
Location

On-site, five days a week in San Francisco, California, United States.

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