Founding Engineer - Infrastructure

Clera

$175K — $300K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 3+ years in infrastructure or platform engineering within a high-growth startup
  • Proficient in production Kubernetes management including deployment and operations
  • Proven track record of end-to-end infrastructure ownership
  • Experience with self-hosted, single-tenant deployment architectures
  • Strong TypeScript programming skills
  • Hands-on experience with deploying and scaling PostgreSQL databases
  • Solid knowledge of AWS cloud services
  • Experience with Docker and containerized environments
  • Willingness to work on-site in the San Francisco Bay Area, with relocation support available
  • Excellent communication skills for cross-functional collaboration

Responsibilities

  • Build and own the integration runtime platform focusing on durability and self-healing systems
  • Develop agent infrastructure for reliable integration code execution
  • Ensure full observability for every integration and agent operation
  • Establish engineering patterns for future infrastructure team members to follow
  • Participate in hiring processes to build the infrastructure team leadership
  • Ship production code regularly while collaborating with founders and engineers

Benefits

  • Early-stage equity as a founding team member
  • Visa sponsorship opportunities
  • Relocation support available for candidates
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is the first infrastructure hire at a fast-moving agentic integration platform building for the real economy. You'll work directly with the CTO as a true peer and founding team member - owning the entire infrastructure and platform layer from day one, with a clear path to leading the infra team within roughly 12 months.

Think of the core product as a mini cloud platform for integration runtime: durable execution, sandboxed isolation, and self-healing systems - plus the agent infrastructure and observability story that ties it all together.
What You'll Do
  • Build and own the integration runtime platform - durable execution, sandboxed isolation, self-healing behaviour (think: a Vercel-style platform purpose-built for integration workloads).
  • Own the agent infrastructure - coding agents that write, test, and deploy integration code, running reliably at scale in production.
  • Deliver full observability across every integration and agent run, including a self-hostable, single-tenant deployment path for enterprise customers.
  • Set the engineering patterns that every future infrastructure hire builds on.
  • Participate in infra-related hiring and grow into leading the team that owns this domain.
  • Ship to production constantly, collaborating closely with founders and engineering peers.
What We're Looking For

Required
  • 3+ years of hands-on infrastructure or platform engineering experience at a high-growth startup or equivalent fast-paced environment.
  • Production Kubernetes experience - deployment, day-to-day operations, and debugging at 2 a.m.
  • Track record of owning infrastructure or a platform end-to-end, not merely contributing to one.
  • Experience building or operating self-hosted, single-tenant deployment architectures.
  • Proficiency in TypeScript development.
  • Hands-on experience deploying and scaling PostgreSQL.
  • Solid working knowledge of AWS cloud services.
  • Docker / containerized environment experience.
  • Ability and willingness to work on-site in the San Francisco Bay Area (relocation support available).
  • Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills; comfortable working directly with founders.

Nice to Have
  • Experience with agentic systems, LLM orchestration, or AI-driven developer tooling.
  • Background in integration platforms, workflow engines, or durable execution frameworks (e.g., Temporal).
  • Prior experience hiring or leading a small infrastructure team.
Compensation & Benefits
  • Salary: $175,000 - $300,000 USD annually, depending on experience.
  • Early-stage equity as a founding team member.
  • Visa sponsorship available.
Location
  • On-site - San Francisco, CA, United States.
  • Relocation support available for the right candidate.

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Clera

  • Medical AI Researcher
    $150K — $230K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Healthcare
    In-Person
  • Founding AI Engineer
    $150K — $200K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Information Technology
    In-Person
  • Founding Engineer
    $150K — $250K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Information Technology
    In-Person
  • Founding GTM
    $120K — $200K *
    San Francisco, CA 94112 (San Francisco County)
    Enterprise Technology
    In-Person
  • Founding Engineer (Potential CTO)
    $170K *
    New York, NY 10025 (New York County)
    Healthcare
    In-Person

More Information Technology Jobs

Find similar Founding Engineer - Infrastructure jobs: