Founding Product Engineer

Clera

$140K — $180K *
Legal & Accounting
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 1 to 3 years of experience in production software development, preferably at an early-stage startup or as a founder.
  • Strong full-stack skills, particularly with TypeScript and React for frontend, and a modern backend stack with relational databases.
  • Hands-on experience with AI or LLMs, from professional work or personal projects.
  • Proven ability to own features from inception to production deployment.
  • Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-paced environments with minimal structure.
  • Strong product instincts with an entrepreneurial mindset.
  • Experience making engineering trade-offs under time constraints.

Responsibilities

  • Build and take ownership of full-stack product features, covering both backend and user interfaces.
  • Collaborate with AI engineers and attorneys to develop production-grade software from legal processes.
  • Make architectural and tooling decisions that balance immediate speed with long-term maintainability.
  • Write clean, reliable code while ensuring ownership of the deployed software.
  • Contribute to defining the engineering culture and hiring standards as the team grows.
  • Prioritize customer experience and deliver work on time.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to shape the engineering culture at an early-stage startup.
  • Direct involvement in transformative legal AI product development.
  • Potential for significant personal and professional impact in a dynamic environment.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a founding product engineering role at an early-stage legal AI startup, where you will build core product features from the ground up alongside attorneys and AI engineers. You will set the engineering culture and standards for the team while owning features that real customers rely on every day. If you want to have outsized impact on a product that is reshaping how legal work gets done, this role is for you.
What You'll Do
  • Build and own full-stack product features, from data models and backend systems to the interfaces attorneys and clients use daily.
  • Partner with AI engineers and attorneys to translate legal workflows and review playbooks into reliable, production-grade software.
  • Make pragmatic architecture and tooling decisions that balance speed now with maintainability later.
  • Write clean, reliable code and take complete ownership of what you ship in production.
  • Help define engineering culture, standards, and hiring practices as the team scales.
  • Move work over the finish line when it matters, keeping customer experience as the top priority.
What We're Looking For
  • 1 to 3 years of experience building and shipping production software, ideally at an early-stage company or as a founder.
  • Strong full-stack ability: TypeScript and React on the front end, a modern backend stack, and relational databases.
  • Hands-on experience building with AI or LLMs, whether professionally or in personal projects.
  • A track record of owning features end-to-end, from conception through production deployment.
  • Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to thrive in fast-moving, high-ownership environments with minimal process.
  • Product instincts and an entrepreneurial, owner-oriented mindset.
  • Experience making pragmatic engineering trade-offs and architecture decisions under time pressure.
  • Excellent judgment and communication skills, with a high bar for your own work.
  • Experience in legal tech, contract management, document processing, or working directly with domain experts is a plus.
  • Familiarity with modern DevOps, CI/CD, and production monitoring practices is a plus.
Compensation & Benefits

Salary: $140,000 to $180,000 per year. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location

This is a full-time, on-site role in San Francisco, California. In-person presence six days per week is required.

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