Founding Engineer (Europe to San Francisco)

Clera

$160K — $200K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Proven track record of building and shipping real applications to actual users.
  • Experience in a startup environment, ideally as a founder or early-stage team member.
  • Strong understanding of product development, with a focus on defining outcomes.
  • Expertise in using AI tools for coding and fast delivery.
  • Commitment to relocate to San Francisco by January 2027.

Responsibilities

  • Build the entire platform from the ground up and make architectural decisions.
  • Engage directly with users to define outcomes and ship products quickly.
  • Rapidly iterate on AI systems, tools, and infrastructure within a small, trusted team.
  • Take ownership of issues: diagnose, fix, and improve systems to prevent future problems.

Benefits

  • Competitive salary that transitions to a San Francisco-equivalent upon relocation.
  • Meaningful equity stake in the company.
  • Full coverage for visa sponsorship and relocation costs.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a founding engineering role at an early-stage AI infrastructure startup building the operating layer for AI-native service businesses: an agentic workforce, a company knowledge layer, a human trust layer, and a unified cockpit to run operations. You will join as a founding team member, shaping the platform from scratch with no legacy code and no pre-written roadmap. The role carries real ownership and real accountability from day one.
What You'll Do
  • Build the full platform end to end, making architectural and product decisions yourself.
  • Talk directly to users, define the right outcomes, and ship to production, without waiting on a ticket.
  • Iterate rapidly on agentic AI systems, tooling, and core infrastructure in a very small, high-trust team.
  • Own what breaks, diagnose it, and fix it, then raise the bar so it does not break the same way again.
What We're Looking For
  • A proven builder who has shipped something real to real users and can speak honestly about what broke and how they fixed it.
  • A product-engineer mindset: you define the outcome, not just the implementation.
  • AI-native: you use AI tooling to write and ship code at a pace that would have looked unreasonable a couple of years ago.
  • Intensity and drive, ideally with experience founding something or joining a startup at an early stage.
  • Firm commitment to relocating to San Francisco by January 2027, this is a firm requirement, not exploratory.
Compensation & Benefits

Competitive salary while based in Europe, switching to a San Francisco-equivalent salary on the day you arrive. Meaningful early equity. Visa sponsorship is fully covered, as is the cost of relocation.
Location

On-site. Currently based in Europe, with relocation to San Francisco required by January 2027. The company operates in person in both locations. Visa sponsorship is available.

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