Software Engineer, Applied AI

Clera

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

Qualifications

  • A few years of software engineering experience with a strong track record of shipping production systems.
  • Hands-on experience with human-in-the-loop evaluation and review systems for agent behavior monitoring.
  • Experience designing evaluations and metrics to assess model performance and impact.
  • Strong ownership mindset with ability to lead cross-functional projects.
  • Experience with full-stack application development and feature ownership from start to finish.
  • Direct experience with LLM applications, agents, or applied AI systems.
  • High agency, product judgment, and comfort across various technical domains.

Responsibilities

  • Build and operate production systems that integrate agent architectures and data infrastructure.
  • Own system design, deployment, and iteration for agent-powered features.
  • Evaluate new models and productionize impactful improvements.
  • Create observability tools and pipelines for agent behavior measurement.
  • Develop workflows covering tool coordination and failure recovery.
  • Design user interfaces for complex agent workflows.
  • Lead cross-functional projects and directly engage with user feedback.

Benefits

  • Equity participation in a well-backed early-stage company.
  • Direct impact within a small team, ensuring work is visible and consequential.
Full Job Description
About the Role

We're a small, ambitious team building applied AI systems at the intersection of private market investing and cutting-edge model capabilities. This is an early- to mid-career role for a software engineer who wants to own production systems end to end - shipping agent-powered features, full-stack applications, and durable workflows that turn improving model capabilities into dependable, economically valuable tools.

You'll work in person with a tight-knit team in San Francisco, take on substantial ownership from day one, and help shape both the technical foundation and engineering culture of a high-conviction company backed by top-tier investors.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
What You'll Do
  • Build and operate production systems spanning agent architectures, full-stack applications, durable workflows, and data infrastructure.
  • Own system design, deployment, and iteration for agent-powered features from concept to production.
  • Evaluate new models, frameworks, tool-use patterns, and context strategies - then productionize the improvements that matter.
  • Build evaluation pipelines, observability tooling, and human-review systems to make agent behavior measurable and reliable.
  • Develop durable workflows and data infrastructure covering tool coordination, context management, state, retries, and failure recovery.
  • Design and implement interfaces that make complex agent workflows clear, fast, and intuitive for end users.
  • Lead substantial cross-functional projects across product, agents, data, and infrastructure - and receive direct user feedback on your work.
  • Contribute meaningfully to engineering culture and technical direction on a small, high-ownership team.
What We're Looking For

Required:
  • A few years of software engineering experience with strong fundamentals and a proven track record of shipping production systems.
  • Hands-on experience building and operating human-in-the-loop evaluation and review systems to monitor and improve agent behavior.
  • Experience designing and implementing evaluations and metrics to measure model performance, reliability, and production impact of AI agents.
  • Strong ownership mindset with demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional projects across product, data, and infrastructure.
  • Experience building full-stack applications and owning features end to end.
  • Direct experience with LLM applications, agents, tool use, or other applied AI systems.
  • High agency, strong product judgment, and comfort moving fluidly across product, backend, data, and infrastructure.
  • Genuine curiosity about agent developments and the judgment to separate useful advances from hype.
  • Based in San Francisco or excited to relocate - this role is fully in-person.

Nice to Have:
  • Background in fintech, financial data, or capital markets.
  • Experience at early-stage startups.
  • Hands-on work with durable workflow orchestration (e.g., Temporal, Prefect, or similar).
  • Experience handling sensitive or permissioned data.
Compensation & Benefits
  • Salary: $150,000 - $250,000 USD annually, depending on experience.
  • Equity participation in a well-backed, early-stage company.
  • Direct impact on a small team where your work is immediately visible and consequential.
Location

This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. Candidates must be based locally or genuinely willing to relocate. Remote work is not available for this position.

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